Zoo backers defend elephant exhibit

With a state-of-the-art elephant house taking shape at the Los Angeles Zoo, officials said Tuesday that Dumbo need not fly the coop. Dana Bartholomew in the Daily News.

Zoo backers defended the $39 million exhibit for endangered Asian elephants after City Councilman Tony Cardenas filed motions to replace it with a San Fernando Valley elephant sanctuary while putting Billy, the zoo's 22-year-old bull elephant, to pasture.

"We think Billy should stay," said John Lewis, general manager for the zoo, standing within the 3.6-acre elephant exhibit set to open in summer 2010. "He's a young and virile male, and we'd like to see him as part of our breeding program. It's a first-class facility in size and complexity, for the care as well as the enrichment of the elephants."