Why the Oakland Zoo Said Goodbye to Osh the Elephant

Osh, the elephant, browsed through acacia, oak and palm branches left in large piles around his enclosure on a bright autumn morning during his last month in Oakland.

A few families milled about the viewing area. Kids pointed excitedly, a familiar storybook animal alive before their eyes. Osh, for his part, did not seem to be similarly impressed. He kept his distance, occupied with the branches and leaves. But it would have been a mistake to assume he was ignoring us.

“He’s probably listening to us right now,” said Gina Kinzley, elephant manager at the Oakland Zoo, “He’s looking over his shoulder at us.”

Kinzley is one of the people who know Osh, the 11-foot-tall African elephant, best in the world. She first met him when he was 11 and about half the size.

“I used to call him Tiny,” Kinzley said. “[It] was his nickname for many years until he wasn’t tiny anymore. But he’s very sweet. He’s very gentle. He’s very happy to see us and work with us.”

She worked with him a lot to get Osh ready for a 46-hour-road one-way trip. He relocated in October to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, where he could have companionship. Osh was the only elephant in Oakland for the previous year.

He used to live with two females, but one passed away in March 2023, and the other, named Donna, transferred to the same elephant sanctuary in Tennessee a few months later so she could have more company.

Female elephants have more social needs than males, in the wild they are always part of a herd. But males need buddies, too. Wild male elephants are part of a herd when they’re young and then may spend some time alone or live with other males.

It took some time for the zoo to figure out what to do.

“We worked with the [Association of Zoos and Aquariums] on finding companionship for him. We were looking for younger bulls to potentially bring here, but there is nobody available for quite a few years, and we really don’t want him to be by himself,” Kinzley said.

“It’s very bittersweet because we love him dearly. But we know that it’s the best decision for him.”

A trend decades in the making

Osh’s move is part of a larger trend in zoo management that’s been building over recent decades.

About 40 zoos have closed their elephant exhibits since the early 90s, according to the nonprofit In Defense of Animals. This is a transition that has already played out in other countries, like the United Kingdom.

“When it comes to wild animal welfare, the U.S. typically lags several decades behind what occurs in the U.K.,” said Jake Veasy, behavior expert and founder and CEO of Care for the Rare, an organization that helps zoos maximize animal welfare.

“There, the industry has seen a wholesale shift of elephants from urban zoos in the U.K. to larger, more extensive wildlife parks. And I would anticipate that continues [in the U.S.] as a consolidation — an increase in the average number of elephants and a dramatic increase in the amount of space they have available.”

A decision to close an elephant exhibit can be met with mixed reactions from the public. Osh’s transfer was celebrated by the zoo and visitors and by Bay Area animal rights activists. However, other zoos facing pressure to close their elephant exhibits have been met with criticism, even from celebrities and local politicians.

“Zoos are very defensive in talking about this kind of thing, but I don’t think they necessarily should be,” Veasy said.

Elephants need a lot of room, but although space is important, Veasy said, it gets a lot of attention because it’s easy to measure. It can be harder for zoos to provide the kind of social conditions they need.
“We have a lot of historic damage to undo,” Veasy said. Elephants are a highly social species and should live in multigenerational herds. But “with the way elephants have been managed, over the past decades, that herd structure is absent.”

In the longer term, if elephants are to persist in captive environments and be well cared for, he said, “a key component is rebuilding that herd structure because it’s so crucial to their welfare.”

Elephants are more social animals than humans, he believes. We have family groups, but we regularly live separate from our extended family with very little distress.

“For elephants, a matriarchal herd is a much tighter bond,” Veasy said. “Separation of those individuals can be very distressing to those elephants. That hasn’t had the attention it’s warranted for many years.”

Elephants not leaving zoos entirely

Not all zoos are bidding farewell to their elephants, though. Dan Ashe, President and CEO of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said some are choosing to expand their elephant enclosures.

“We see both sides,” Ashe said. “We see some members deciding that elephants are no longer in their future and some facilities investing heavily in elephants.”

Several zoos, including San Diego and Cincinnati, are developing new large elephant habitats, costing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, and the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago is planning to bring elephants back within the next 15 years.

Osh settling in

Late last month, Osh arrived in Tennessee and, by all accounts, is settling in nicely. The sanctuary is 3,060 acres in size and currently holds 12 other elephants, with room to accept more.

“We have a natural forest environment, and on day one, Osh went out, and he knocked down a tree,” said Scott Hooper, the elephant bull program manager at the sanctuary. “Which is great. It’s a really natural behavior for elephants.”

Playfully knocking over trees was something he and his friend Donna did a lot at the Oakland Zoo. Osh has also been sleeping overnight, another good sign.

Osh seems keen to get to know Artie, the African bull elephant he shares a fenceline with.

“And we’re just waiting for Artie to get a little more comfortable with Osh before we kind of let them share space together,” Hooper said.

“He’s definitely interested, and he’ll reach his trunk out and wait for Artie to come over. Artie just hasn’t built the confidence up yet, but that’s definitely a huge goal of ours with Osh and with all the elephant socialization down the road.”

Donna is also at the sanctuary, and the ultimate goal is to reunite them and allow the elephants to live as a herd.

The sanctuary is not open for the visiting public to view elephants, but Osh’s fans can keep up with him on the sanctuary’s webcams.