The Los Angeles City Council voted on Wednesday to finish the Los Angeles Zoo's controversial elephant project that worths $42 million and keep its lone pachyderm representative, Billy, at the zoo, in spite of pleas from Hollywood stars and animal rights groups. The decision was made after an emotional hearing attended by several hundred people.

 

The new, six-acre "Pachyderm Forest" will be seven times larger than the current enclosure and will have nearly four acres of open space with pools, mud holes and a waterfall, this way turning into one of the largest planned elephant enclosures in the country. The project is already 30 per cent complete and costs about $12 million which means that the city has spent too much money to abandon the project now. The exhibit is expected to be spacious and comfortable for Billy and all the additional elephants that the zoo officials hope to bring there.

 

In spite of that, the opponents of the new enclosure compared it to a form of animal slavery saying that it will not provide enough room for Billy and other animals.

 

In addition to that, zoo employee Karen Foley, together with a number of high school science students wearing green "Save Pachyderm Forest" T-shirts, begged the council to “keep Billy where he belongs, with the family he already has."

 

Celebrities such as Bob Barker, a longtime animal rights activist and actress Betty White, a longtime zoo volunteer, together with many other celebrities among who Cher, Robert Culp, Tippi Hedren and Lily Tomlin pleaded in favor of keeping Billy at the zoo and shutting down the project. In spite of all their efforts, the council voted 11-4 to move ahead with the long-planned Pachyderm Forest.