Lucy’s overall wellbeing
Lucy’s veterinarian and other elephant specialists agree that Lucy needs to stay in Edmonton where she is comfortable, calm and well cared for. Moving Lucy would not be good for either her physical or mental health.
Lucy is imprinted on people; she gets her emotional support from people, not elephants. She has been at the Valley Zoo for 32 of her 35 years.
Lucy would miss her zoo family – the people who interact with her everyday – and her involvement with people if moved.
Lucy’s health
Lucy is a content and well
-adjusted elephant. She has two manageable health issues:
Lucy has had a breathing challenge that her veterinarian believes is caused by a dental issue. One of Lucy’s teeth did not fall out when it should have and crowded the tooth that was growing in to replace it. This issue causes swelling in the sinus area making it difficult for Lucy to breathe through her trunk. Lucy recently lost the tooth that originally caused the crowding.
Lucy’s veterinarian will continue monitoring Lucy closely and consulting with a leading expert on elephant dental health to determine how to continue effectively managing this issue for Lucy. So far her breathing challenges remain.
Lucy’s only other ailment is arthritis, developed several years ago. Lucy receives excellent care in managing this condition, including regular physiotherapy exercises and daily walks.
Lucy has no foot issues. Great care is taken with Lucy’s feet. They are checked to be sure she hasn’t collected any pebbles or sticks during her long walks and conditioned twice a day as a preventative measure.
Some who do not know Lucy have said she demonstrates "stereotypic" behaviour, in other words, behaviour indicating she was lethargic or stressed. This is not correct. This misperception stems from zoo visitors seeing Lucy for only a snapshot in time. This behaviour is actually "anticipatory" behaviour. This means that Lucy will get excited and sway or stomp her feet when she is anticipating a visit from a favourite person or going on a walk or other stimulating event.
Travelling
Lucy has traveled twice to Calgary when she was younger for the purposes of breeding. This was in 1986 and 1987 each time for a six month time period. Although Lucy did not conceive, we were able to learn a great deal about how she handled traveling and other elephants.
In transit, vet staff became very concerned. She experienced severe diarrhea and became dehydrated. Her health was monitored closely for several days after the trip. We realized that traveling in a truck was horrifically frightening for her, even during this short trip.
When Lucy arrived home, she knew exactly where she was and began to do her herd rumble and hugged her care staff with her trunk or gently wrapped her ear around them.
Temple Grandin, distinguished animal behaviourist, has said, "The single worst thing you can do to an animal emotionally is to make it feel afraid. Fear is so bad for animals I think it's worse than pain."
We know Lucy is more than fearful about traveling. When the truck arrived to move Samantha, the Zoos African elephant, Lucy became extremely frightened and ran to the back of her enclosure where she stayed until the truck was gone. She remembered the trauma of traveling more than 20 years later.