JUSTICE DENIED FOR BILLY AND TINA: LAWSUIT FAILS TO STOP MOVE TO THE TULSA ZOO!

On 5/15/2025, in a disappointing turn of events, the lawsuit that would stop the move of Billy and Tina to the Tulsa Zoo in Oklahoma was denied. In their ruling, the Judge stated the matter needs to be decided by elected officials, not the judicial system. 

Further, in a sworn declaration to the court, Denise Verret, Director and CEO of the Los Angeles Zoo, stated the San Diego Zoo has already transferred "ownership" of Tina to the Tulsa Zoo, and arrangements are underway to move her.

"This is a tragic moment for Billy and Tina, but it's not the end", said LCA President and Founder Chris DeRose. "Today's decision puts the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of our elected officials. We will not stop fighting until Billy, Tina, and every other elephant exploited in the name of entertainment are treated as the sentient beings they are, not as exhibits or profit machines. The L.A. Zoo has failed these animals. It's time for L.A. to choose compassion over captivity".

The lawsuit was filed on 5/11/2025 to stop the L.A. Zoo's attempetd transfer of Billy and Tina to the Tulsa Zoo. The legal action challenged the Zoo's last-minute maneuver to move the elephants without public notice, transparency, or waiting for a pending City Council Motion that would allow Billy and Tina to retire to a legitimate elephant sanctuary.

URGENT ACTION: TELL MAYOR KAREN BASS AND L.A. CITY COUNIL TO SEND BILLY AND TINA TO A SANCTUARY

CALL MAYOR BASS AT 213-978-0600

AND EMAIL MAYOR BASS AT THIS LINK

 We need your help again, please call and email the L.A. City Council and Mayor Karen Bass, and urge them to send Billy and Tina to a sanctuary!

SAMPLE MESSAGE: "My name is ______ and I'm calling on behalf of Billy and Tina, two elephants who have been suffering for decades at the L.A. Zoo. No elephant should be tortured like this. Please use the power of your office to support moving Billy and Tina to a sanctuary, NOT another zoo. Voters like me will remember whether you had the courage to stand up for Billy and Tina or whether you caved to the L.A. Zoo. You don't want to be on the wrong side of history."

L.A. CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION

CD1: Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7001

CD4: Councilmember Nithya Raman, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7004

CD5: Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7005

CD6: Councilmember Imelda Padilla, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7006

CD7: Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7007

CD8: Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7003

CD9: Councilmember Curren D. Price, Jr., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7009

CD10: Councilmember Heather Hutt, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7010

CD11: Councilmember Traci Park, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7011

CD12: Councilmember John Lee, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7012

CD13: Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7013

CD14: Councilmember Ysabel J. Jurado, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7014

CD15: Councilmember Tim McOsker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Phone: 213-473-7015

 Note: LCA has excluded Councilmember Blumenfield (CD3) and Councilmember Nazarian (CD2) from this list because they brought the Motion forward to explore sending Billy and Tina to a sanctuary.

 BACKGROUND

On 4/22/2025, the L.A. Zoo announced plans to move Billy and Tina, their last remaining elephants, to the Tulsa Zoo in Oklahoma. Although zoo advocates refer to the Tulsa Zoo as a "nature preserve," it is just another zoo, with enclosures as unfit for the L.A. Zoo elephants as where they are currently held captive.

On 4/23/2025, a Motion was put forward by L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield (CD3), seconded by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian (CD2), directing the City Council to:

• Instruct the L.A. Zoo not to move the elephants until the matter is voted on by full City Council.
• Instruct the L.A. Zoo to report back within 30 days on relocation options that include U.S. based elephant sanctuaries and other options.

However, the Motion is time-sensitive because Billy and Tina could be moved to the Tulsa Zoo in Oklahoma at any moment. LCA is urging Mayor Bass to exercise the power of her office and send the elephants to sanctuary. You can help by calling Mayor Bass at 213-978-0600 and tell her to halt the transfer of Billy and Tina!

Mayor Bass is currently siding with the L.A. Zoo director, Denise Verret. Mayor Bass is misguided when she backs the zoo director instead of listening to the thousands upon thousands of people who have wanted these elephants to go to sanctuary for decades. LCA is calling on Mayor Bass to do the right thing!

Both Tina and Billy were ripped from the wild in Asia at a young age and brought to the U.S. Tina was trafficked into the circus in 1967 at one-year-old, and endured years of abuse before arriving at the L.A. Zoo in 2010. Billy was four years old when he arrived at the L.A. Zoo in 1989. Both are in poor health and suffer from chronic health conditions, including brain damage caused by severe zoochosis. All day, Billy and Tina can be seen swaying or bobbing their heads repeatedly, signs of severe mental collapse. A disturbing video supplied anonymously to LCA showed Billy being trained with a bull hook when he first arrived at the L.A. Zoo in 1989. 

Although the L.A. Zoo announced it would be suspending its elephant exhibit "indefinitely" after moving Billy and Tina, it has a long history of confining elephants in severely inadequate conditions that deny the animals space, stimulation, and social structure that they require. Since the L.A. Zoo opened its elephant exhibit in 1966, there have been approximately 17 elephant deaths. The zoo’s current elephant enclosure — the ‘Elephants of Asia’ exhibit — opened on December 16, 2010, at a cost of $42 million to taxpayers. While an Asian elephant in the wild may roam freely over a range of 150,000 acres, the exhibit consists of only two acres of walkable ground subdivided into five smaller yards — not nearly enough room for any elephant.

After the decades of suffering that Billy and Tina have been subjected to, LCA believes the only compassionate decision is to let them live out the remainder of their lives in a sanctuary.

Tina was photographed at the L.A. Zoo with manacles on her feet on 5/3/2025. The manacles mean she is being prepared for transport.

LCA'S FIGHT AGAINST THE L.A. ZOO

Chris DeRose and LCA have been fighting to end elephant captivity since 1986; LCA’s 'Elephant Sanctuaries, Not Captivity!' campaign has involved litigation, media outreach, and numerous protests.

In 2005, DeRose handcuffed himself to the enclosure of Gita, a female Asian elephant (who died in 2006), in protest of the abhorrent conditions at the LA Zoo. The action gained local news coverage, bringing much-needed attention to the problem.

Chris DeRose, Founder and President of LCA, protesting outside the LA Zoo in 2006.

Chris DeRose handcuffed to the elephant exhibit at the LA Zoo in 2005.

The campaign has also included a mobile billboard quoting former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s pledge to close the LA Zoo’s elephant exhibit. “A zoo is no place for an animal as large as an elephant,” Villaraigosa said on the campaign trail in 2004. “We need to move the elephants out.”

LCA's mobile billboard outside of the LA Zoo.

In 2006, after Mayor Villaraigosa failed to fulfill his promise, DeRose confronted him publicly for allowing the elephants to continue to suffer at the zoo.

Chris DeRose confronting Mayor Villaraigosa in 2006.

During Villaraigosa's campaign and mayoral term, two female elephants at the LA Zoo died – Tara in 2004 and Gita in 2006. Following these deaths, the zoo agreed to relocate an elderly elephant, Ruby, to the PAWS Elephant Sanctuary in Northern California where she lived until 2011, dying at the age of 50. Celebrity activists including Bob Barker, Lily Tomlin, and Cher pledged $1.5 million to cover the cost to relocate Billy to PAWS as well, but the LA Zoo refused.

Ruby at PAWS.

DeRose warned that relocation campaigns could “set a dangerous precedent: zoos will view sanctuaries as a way to get their ‘surplus’ and ‘problem’ elephants off their hands while continuing to breed more elephants, instead of realizing that zoos are the problem – the small spaces, the concrete floors and the unnatural social groupings are slowly driving the elephants insane while their feet and bodies deteriorate before our eyes.”

“I want to make this clear,” DeRose added. “LCA is committed for the rights of all elephants, not just the welfare of one. We wanted to see Ruby and Billy move out of the zoo as much as anyone, maybe more...but the focus should remain to close the elephant exhibit once and for all. [Ruby’s] move is nothing more than clearing out old inventory to make room for the new.”

DeRose’s warning came true; Tina and Jewel were brought to the LA Zoo soon after Ruby’s relocation to PAWS.

Billy at the LA Zoo.

LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THE L.A. ZOO'S ELEPHANT EXHIBIT

In 2007, actor Robert Culp (now deceased) and real estate broker Aaron Leider filed a lawsuit seeking to close the LA Zoo’s elephant exhibit and move the elephants to sanctuaries.

LA Superior Court Judge John L. Segal agreed with many of the plaintiffs’ arguments, stating in his ruling in 2012, “All is not well at [the LA Zoo]. Contrary to what the zoo’s representatives may have told the ... city council in order to get construction of the $42 million exhibit approved and funded, the elephants are not healthy, happy, or thriving.”

Unfortunately, Judge Segal did not rule to close the exhibit. He offered limited improvements by requiring the zoo to cease using bull hooks and electric shock on elephants, to exercise the elephants at least two hours a day, and to rototill the exhibit's soil.

Leider appealed the decision, again seeking the closure of the elephant exhibit and relocation of the elephants to sanctuaries. LCA provided video evidence of the zoo’s cruel training methods, and later filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in support of Leider’s appeal.

The city filed an appeal of its own in an attempt to overturn the minimal standards of care mandated by Judge Segal.

In 2016, both appeals were rejected and the original ruling upheld.

Despite this decision, LCA will never give up fighting on behalf of the elephants confined to the LA Zoo and other cruel facilities.

HOW CAN YOU HELP

• Protest a zoo near you. Reach out to LCA if you need posters and/or brochures - email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

• Write your elected officials and urge for stricter animal welfare regulations and increased U.S.D.A. inspections. For your elected officials’ contact information, visit www.votesmart.org 

• Avoid businesses, at home and on vacation, that exploit wild animals – this includes all elephant rides, roadside zoos, AZA accredited zoos, and petting zoos.

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