Ruby Is Packing Trunk for Return to L.A. Zoo

And so, a year after being moved, the 43-year-old African elephant will be returned to the Los Angeles Zoo, city officials said Monday.

"Though the move of Ruby to the Knoxville Zoo was well-intentioned, it is clear that she has not fully assimilated to her surroundings and therefore should be returned to the Los Angeles Zoo," Mayor James K. Hahn said.

Hahn sent a letter to the L.A. Zoo's general manager asking for her return as soon as possible.

L.A. Zoo officials said Ruby probably would come home after the summer heat passed, although no decision had been made.

The move marks the latest event in a rethinking of elephant exhibits in zoos across the country. The San Francisco Zoo decided last month to retire two elephants to a sanctuary when their companions died. In May, the Detroit Zoo also decided to send its elephants to a sanctuary, because the director believed that the elephants shouldn't live in small groups without many acres to roam.

Ruby spent 19 years in Los Angeles after the zoo bought her from a circus. In May 2003, she was lent to Knoxville to serve as a role model for younger African elephants trying to breed and raise calves (she has had one calf). Also, the L.A. Zoo had decided to focus on Asian elephants.

Calls for her return -- or for her retirement to a sprawling elephant sanctuary in Tennessee -- were renewed after KNBC-TV, Channel 4 news showed footage last week of Ruby standing by herself and swaying at the Knoxville Zoo.

In the footage, Ruby looks like "a desperate elephant," said Gretchen Wyler, vice president of the Hollywood office of the Humane Society of the United States, who shot the video in June. This behavior, she said, contrasted with the playful tenderness Ruby exhibited with Gita, an Asian elephant and her friend for 16 years. Wyler also had shot video of the two elephants touching trunks and throwing hay on each other.

"All an elephant girl needs is a best friend, and she had it," said Wyler, who cheered news of Ruby's return.

"It's called doing the right thing. She'll be back at the L.A. Zoo where she's happiest."

The Humane Society has supported a lawsuit filed last year by a Los Angeles resident contending that Ruby, as city property, belonged to the taxpayers and asking for the elephant's return.