The Santa Barbara Zoo’s 48-year-old Asian elephant, Little Mac, was euthanized Wednesday night in her exhibit yard, days after the institution announced the animal was placed on hospice care due to her failing health.
She died surrounded by her four full-time keepers and support staff who have cared for her over the years, and her death marks the end of elephants at the zoo.
“We feel strongly the decision to humanely euthanize her was the most compassionate and respectful thing we could do for her,” Julie Barnes, the zoo’s director of animal care and health, told Noozhawk. “We had run out of medical options that would allow her to have a good quality of life and we didn’t want to see her suffer.
“She has given too much to the zoo, to our guest and our community to let that happen,” Barnes continued, adding, Little Mac “went down calmly and the keepers were with her, talking to her and then we put her to sleep.”
Barnes provided veterinary care to Little Mac for about nine years and said she was present during the euthanasia.
The median life expectancy for Asian elephants is about 47 years, and an Asian elephant is considered geriatric at about age 40, Barnes said.
Little Mac’s health deteriorated and she began receiving hospice care for several days following a sharp decline in her physical condition, according to the zoo.
She lost weight, showed lower activity levels, less engagement with training and a loss of appetite.
The animal faced chronic challenges with her teeth and arthritis in her legs, but her overall condition began declining in June, with additional medical problems, Barnes said.
Santa Barbara Zoo staff consulted about Little Mac’s treatment options and prognosis with well-respected elephant veterinarians Ellen Weidner in Florida and Dennis Schmitt in Missouri, several veterinarians from San Diego Zoo Global, and local equine veterinarians. No diagnosis was reached.
“She started to decline,” Barnes said of Little Mac. “We had started to exhaust all of our medical options for her, so it came down to keeping her as comfortable as we could.”
The animal’s 7,000-pound body was removed by crane to a truck and taken to the California Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory in San Bernardino, which is run by UC Davis, where a necropsy will begin on Thursday.
Little Mac typically weighed around 7,600 pounds before her health started to decline, Barnes said.
Examination results will take several weeks and will contribute to ongoing research into the health and welfare of elephants under human care, said Julia McHugh, the zoo’s public relations director.
Little Mac arrived at the Santa Barbara Zoo from India in 1972 with her companion, an Asian elephant named Sujatha, who died last October.
Sujatha, 47, was euthanized because of ailments related to old age.
Data gathered during a behavioral study in November 2018 supports keepers’ observations and behavior monitoring of Little Mac since Sujatha passed away, Barnes said.
“She was doing all of the things we would expect a happy, well-adjusted elephant to do,” Barnes said of Little Mac.
Little Mac was showing increased engagement with her environment, even when faced with changes in her routine and habitat. She didn’t show signs of depression or any other concerning behaviors after Sujatha’s death, Barnes said.
“We were hopeful that if she had a longer life, maybe she would move on to join some other elephants,” Barnes said of Little Mac. “However, around June… that’s when the medical issues started to ramp up, and the data started to become skewed and her behavior changed dramatically.”
Each elephant was 1 and a half years old when they arrived at the Santa Barbara Zoo, and the pair of elephants lived together at the zoo their entire lives. Neither bred or produced offspring.
The females came to Santa Barbara in exchange for six California sea lions.
Standards for elephant management, set by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, focus on bigger herds, breeding bulls and having larger exhibits.
The Santa Barbara Zoo does not have capacity to expand the elephant exhibit to meet the AZA requirements, Barnes said, adding, “fewer zoos are holding elephants and those continuing to have an elephant program have larger herds and bigger exhibit spaces dedicated to those herds.”
Santa Barbara’s elephant exhibit was designed for the two female elephants, and had been modified several times since 2004 to address the challenges the animals face as they aged, a news statement said.
Plans have yet been made for future occupants of the elephant exhibit.
“We are not sure yet what we are going to do with this space,” Barnes said. “We have some ideas, but we have to look at what modifications are needed depending on the species. We will start that planning over the next couple of months.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
