Edmonton • Zoo

It’s easy to assume Edmonton’s Valley Zoo is no place for an elephant like Lucy. Certainly animal rights activists don’t like the place. It is small, it lacks other elephants, endures frigid winters, and perhaps worst of all, it’s in a city so far away from the warm limelights of Hollywood and Toronto that celebrities couldn’t imagine living here themselves.

Does that sound cynical? Perhaps it is, but the city is currently embroiled in an equally cynical debate about whether to send the ailing middle-aged animal to a sanctuary in California that sounds like heaven on earth for creatures great and small rescued from miserable lives in showbiz.

It certainly sounds like an admirable cause. Just ask retired game show host Bob Barker, TV actor William Shatner, or the dozens of big-name Canadian authors who have lent their names to the “free Lucy” campaign. With all of these deep thinkers on board, it makes you wonder why Zoocheck Canada’s initiative is not a done deal.

Well, maybe, just maybe, Lucy’s human companions in Edmonton learned a thing or two about her needs and health over the past 30 years as they’ve fed, exercised, mentally stimulated, and, yes, loved her each and every day. She paints pictures, after all, and is described as a quiet sweetheart.

When they say she is in no condition to be moved, we should listen and ask thoughtful questions. We shouldn’t assume the zoo is categorically against such moves. It sent its other elephant, Samantha, to a sanctuary in Tennessee a couple of years ago.

When a veterinarian from the San Diego Zoo says any veterinarian who signed off on her move would be committing malpractice, we shouldn’t assume he’s kidding.

Even the website for the Performing Animal Welfare Society, which owns the reserve where Lucy would live if she makes the journey, warns against ill-considered moves: “The removal of any individual elephant from familiar surroundings and companions is a highly traumatic experience which can cause physical and psychological problems and occasionally death.”

As well, all of these arguments do not take into account the financial burden of such a move. According to the same website, the cost of caring for an unhealthy elephant can exceed $100,000 a year and the move alone could cost between $15,000 and $40,000. Is the city expected to pay? Will the celebrity endorsers?

Then again, it’s true Edmonton is a cold place during the winter and Lucy and the Valley Zoo provide an easy target for animal rights activists who don’t want to see any creature in any zoo anywhere. If not, why aren’t they directing this snowballing publicity campaign to save some truly neglected and abused creatures? There are plenty to choose from.