The Los Angeles Zoo has been accused of ‘shattering its trust’ with the public after secretly moving its last elephants across the country in the dead of night.
Critics say LA Mayor Karen Bass chose to avoid scrutiny over the controversial decision to keep the animals confined by transferring them to Tulsa Zoo rather than retire them to a place where they could roam free.
Despite protests, petitions and ongoing calls urging Bass to send them to a sanctuary in Cambodia, she made the final decision to send them to Oklahoma.
Celebrities including Cher, Nicola Peltz Beckham and Kim Basinger had bombarded Bass pleading with her not to send the animals to Tulsa – which is ranked the 13th worst zoo in America out of 439 by EcoCation.org. LA is ranked second worst.
Photos obtained by DailyMail.com show an empty elephant exhibit at the LA Zoo on Tuesday, just one day after Asian elephants Billy, 40, and Tina, 59, were seen with shackles around their ankles in preparation for their departure.
‘They knew what would happen if the public caught wind of what they were doing, so they meticulously planned the move in the wee hours of the morning,’ one insider told DailyMail.com.
‘They were afraid someone might get photos of the elephants in transport. This was all done in secrecy.
‘Even the zoo staff was kept in the dark.
In the wake of their move, calls for Bass to resign have mounted with countless people taking to social media to vent their disapproval.
LA Mayor Karen Bass is under fire for green lighting the removal of Asian elephants Billy and Tina from the LA Zoo and transporting them to Tulsa Zoo in Oklahoma in the dead of night
Billy, 40, (left) and Tina, 59, have been at the center of protests, petitions and ongoing calls urging Bass to send them to a sanctuary in Cambodia
On Monday, the Asian elephants were seen with shackles around their ankles in preparation for their departure
‘November 3, 2026, Election Day and the end of @mayorofla and her disregard for LA’s animals,’ was written in one Instagram message in response to a screenshot of a photo of Billy and Tina with the words written ‘MAYOR BASS MOVED THEM at 1:30am.’
Another comment condemning the mayor said, ‘@mayorofla @karenbassla You need to resign!!!!!!!’
‘Prison is where she needs to be moved’, appeared in another comment.
The arduous pursuit to push for Billy and Tina’s well-being was headed by In Defense of Animals (IDA), but their efforts were fruitless due to the zoo’s lack of transparency.
‘Moving them in such a shady, secretive manner is highly unethical and shows the LA Zoo’s complete lack of humanity and decency for these beloved elephants who have spent the majority of their lives in misery,’ said Courtney Scott, an elephant consultant for the IDA.
‘Here they are sneaking them out in the middle night. What a contrast to how the Toronto Zoo handled the relocation of their three renaming elephants.
‘The Toronto City Council approved their release to a sanctuary in Northern California called the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), and the move was celebrated and documented in broad daylight by news crews for all the world to see.
Courtney Scott, an elephant consultant for the non-profit organization In Defense of Animals said the city removed Billy and Tina in a ‘shady, secretive and highly unethical’ manner
On April 7, the Tulsa Zoo opened its new elephant enclosure. But Dr. Chris Draper called the relocation to the Oklahoma zoo ‘reckless’ and ‘irresponsible’ based on his findings after visiting the new location
Photos obtained by DailyMail.com show an empty elephant exhibit at the LA Zoo on Tuesday
Billy and Tina have called this exhibit – now empty – home for a combined 94 years
Despite the protests from concerned Angelenos and wildlife organizations, LA Zoo remained steadfast in its decision to pay $44,000 to transport the animals to Tulsa.
Director Denise Verret even shifted responsibility, commenting that the celebrities who have been vocal about the elephants’ wellbeing, could ‘easily raise enough money to cover the cost of retiring Billy and Tina to true elephant sanctuaries’.
But contrary to the zoo’s monetary concerns, both PAWS and the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee (TES) have made public offers to take in Billy and Tina for the remainder of their lives.
And retired trial lawyer David Casselman, the co-founder of Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary and the non-profit organization The Ecoflix Foundation, has publicly fought for years to relocate the elephants with offers to transport and provide them lifelong care, free of charge.
But Casselman claims this had been met with indifference. And despite the proposal being presented at a recent city council budget hearing, Director Verret claims to have no knowledge of this proposition.
‘Along with most Angelenos, I am devastated by the fact that Billy and Tina were allowed/forced to suffer for decades, only to be forced to go to an even less desirable Zoo environment.
‘These decisions have always lacked scientific support, human decency, and bring further shame on the L.A. Zoo and the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums),’ said Casselman. Verret chairs the AZA’s board of directors.
The Performing Animal Welfare Society’s sanctuary in San Andreas, California, where three elephants from the Toronto Zoo were moved in 2013, was one option preferred by activists as a home for Billy and Tina
LA Zoo director Denise Verrett said moving Billy and Tina to the Tulsa Zoo would cost $44,000, but the celebrity supporters can ‘easily raise enough money to cover the cost of retiring Billy and Tina to true elephant sanctuaries’
Cher, Kim Basinger, and Nicola Peltz Beckham were among 20 celebrities who signed a letter urging LA Mayor Karen Bass to transport two Asian elephants to a sanctuary rather than the Tulsa Zoo
LA Zoo says it needed to move Billy and Tina so they can take part in a Species Survival Plan. Tulsa was chosen because it already has five Asian elephants. .
Billy was captured in Malaysia at age four and has spent the last 36 years in LA. Tina was also born wild and caught in 1967, when she was just a year old.
After years of abuse and neglect in the circus, she was confiscated in 2009 by the US Department of Agriculture and sent to the San Diego Zoo before she arrived in LA in 2010.
But the LA Zoo, Casselman explained, had already had 17 elephants die under their care, including Hannibal, who died when he was improperly medicated in preparation for transfer to another location.
And early last year, Shaunzi, a 59-year-old female elephant, collapsed to the ground due to foot and leg degeneration. She could not get back up and died of heart failure and suffocation.
World-renowned expert on the animal Dr. Chris Draper, who visited the Tulsa Zoo on May 10, testified in legal documents that it was ‘reckless’ and ‘irresponsible’ to send Billy and Tina there.
He testified that the conditions at the newly expanded Elephant Experience and Preserve, where the giant beasts will live out their golden years, have a lack of proper terrain which is the animal’s number one cause of injury, or adequate shade in an exceedingly hot climate and space.
The conditions at the new enclosure were described by Draper as ‘inhumane’ for the two bulls Sneezy and Hank and three cows Sooky, Booper and Connie already living there.
In the wake of their move, Mayor Bass has been called on to resign with countless people taking to social media to vent their disapproval
Users have commented the election day date of November 3, 2026, in protest of her re-election following the secret removal of Billy and Tina
‘All five of the elephants lack(ed) muscle tone and were not in optimal body condition, and one had a cracked nail,’ Draper said in the letter.
When explaining one yard’s inadequacies, Draper said it was ‘disturbingly small, even by zoo standards, with no opportunity for the elephants to get away from each other if they wanted to do so.’
After the dead-of-night move, the LA Zoo released a statement saying: ‘The decision to move the elephants to the Tulsa Zoo was made with the health and well-being of the individual elephants as the top priority.
‘This option also ensured that Billy and Tina would be able to remain together,’ the zoo added.
Elephant experts worry that Billy who has lived alone for decades will have a challenging time interacting with other elephants, especially in close quarters.
This is also the same argument that was made when the LA Zoo spent a whopping $42million on its Elephants of Asia Exhibit in 2010, claiming it would make the animals happier and healthier.
But contrary to the zoo’s positive claims, a superior court judge later found these claims to have no foundation. The elephants were not happier, healthier or thriving.
Casselman who looked at the medical records of the California zoo’s past elephants during a 2012 litigation said: ‘If I can be blunt, I would summarize the medical records pertaining to the LA Zoo elephants as a repository for every horrible outcome you can imagine involving elephants in captivity.
‘Billy and Tina will die in pain at the Tulsa Zoo, in a hopelessly inadequate environment, but Mayor Bass could have changed the narrative and helped restore the City of Angels moniker which has somehow been lost along the way.’
The co-founder of Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, David Casselman, said he would take and transport the elephants free of charge at a city council budget meeting, but the zoo’s director claims she has no knowledge of this proposition
Casselman’s Ecoflix Foundation produced a 2021 documentary called Free Billy
Tina was taken into a circus in 1969 at one year old and endured years of abuse before being confiscated by the US Department of Agriculture
‘Indeed, the recent fires have tarnished many images in their wake. And this important story involving Billy and Tina is already being covered as international news. As such, it had the power to inject positivity and hope into LA and the world.’
Controversy at the LA Zoo doesn’t stop at Billy and Tina, it also stretches to Director Verret who is currently locked in a legal battle with the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association (GLAZA), the non-profit organization that has supported the LA Zoo for over sixty years with its fundraising.
In a sworn declaration, filed on May 1, GLAZA claimed Verret diverted over $365,000 so she and her staff could travel to places such as Buena Aires, the Canary Islands, Sydney Australia and a ‘familiarization trip’ to Botswana.
An additional $1.7million was directed to outside organizations separately, despite the zoo needing improvements – including $449,000 to the AZA and other organizations where Verret sits on the Board of Directors.
Other questionable spending noted includes $22,000 for a private party Verret held to celebrate her new position as Zoo Director and more than $27,500 of donor funds to improve her personal office and her assistant’s office, including new patio furniture.
‘It’s quite evident that Verret’s unilateral decision to ship off Billy and Tina to another zoo was motivated by her self-interests and her brand, the AZA,’ said Judie Mancuso, founder of the political advocacy group Social Compassion in Legislation.
‘Mayor Bass was wrong in assuming that just a mere handful of animal activists cared about the fate of Billy and Tina.
‘To prove otherwise, I compiled a list of diverse voices in the community who equally wanted to see the elephants retire to a sanctuary,’ said Mancuso who blasted out a public letter signed by Cher and many others to Mayor Bass.
Advocates claim Verret’s ‘unilateral decision to ship off Billy and Tina to another zoo was motivated by her self-interests and her brand’
Judie Mancuso, founder of Social Compassion in Legislation, was the one who blasted out the letter signed by Cher and other advocates on behalf of the elephants
But it was too late. Unknown to everyone, the elephants were already in transit to Tulsa.
‘Mayor Bass had this golden opportunity to set these elephants free at least and show her compassion for animals once and for all, but she failed miserably.
‘She will be remembered as a heartless politician who sent Billy and Tina to their early graves,’ said Shira Astrof, Founder and CEO of The Animal Rescue Mission.
DailyMail.com reached out to Mayor Bass and LA Zoo Director Verret for comment.
