Metro Is About to Dump Its Plans for an Offsite Elephant Reserve

A space for Oregon Zoo elephants to roam was part of the pitch for a $125 million zoo bond.

By Nigel Jaquiss

Packy, Rose-Tu and the other four elephants at the Oregon Zoo can unpack their trunks—their government minders are canceling a planned trip to an offsite elephant reserve.

In 2008, voters approved a $125 million zoo bond. At the time, proponents pitched voters a vision of an elephant reserve where the pachyderms could roam freely.

Metro, the government that oversees the zoo, spent years studying options, including 240 acres of dry lake bed in Sandy that it nearly purchased for the herd. Metro set aside $7.1 million for the project, including $5.8 million in bond money.

But Metro documents show the regional government is ready to abandon the reserve, saying it can't find operating funds or a location.

"The financial and operational challenges far outweigh the benefits an offsite facility would generate," Metro chief operating officer Martha Bennett wrote in a memo this week to the Metro Council, which is expected to scrap the project Jan. 21.

The decision is likely to agitate animal-rights activists, some of whom supported the bond measure because they wanted a reserve.

"The Oregon Humane Society is disappointed that the offsite reserve is being removed as an option," says OHS director Sharon Harmon, who filed a 2008 Voters' Pamphlet statement extolling the virtues of a refuge.

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