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A pachyderm promise can't be kept

The Maryland Zoo, in financial trouble, can't accept three Philadelphia elephants.

The Philadelphia Zoo's three African elephants will not move to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, which announced yesterday that it has delayed the expansion of its elephant exhibit because of financial problems and would not be able to accept Petal, Kallie and Bette this spring as planned.

Officials at the Philadelphia Zoo, which is closing its elephant exhibit, said they were working with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to find another home for the three animals.

"We are disappointed with the Maryland Zoo's decision," said Vikram Dewan, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Zoo. "We believed Maryland was an ideal location. . . . Once notified by Maryland Zoo officials that their plans were changing, we immediately began re-examining alternative sites, including those that were originally evaluated by our animal care staff."

The announcement came just two weeks after a Maryland Zoo official said in an interview the move was on schedule, with Baltimore keepers making regular get-acquainted visits here and planning for the breeding of Kallie, 24, and Bette, 23, as soon as possible after their relocation.

Andy Baker, the Philadelphia Zoo's vice president of animal programs, said the about-face would probably delay the elephants' scheduled late-spring relocation by a matter of months while the staff searched for an alternative home, but was not likely to interfere with long-term plans to turn the elephant area into a children's zoo.

The bird show that was to move into the elephant yard in June after the animals left will be staged elsewhere on the grounds, he said.

Dulary, 42, the Philadelphia Zoo's Asian elephant, is still scheduled to move to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, most likely in April.

Just five months ago, zoo leaders in Baltimore spoke with certainty about their ability to raise money for a $16 million habitat expansion, which would have included an unusual loop trail designed by a Philadelphia architectural firm and scheduled to open next spring.

While the work took place, the three Philadelphia elephants would have shared a half-acre yard and 10,000-square-foot barn with Dolly and Anna, a pair of Africans who have been in Baltimore for almost 25 years.

"Our timetable has slipped and our exhibit would not be ready to take the elephants this spring as we had planned," Billie Grieb, president of the Maryland Zoo, said in a statement.

"At the same time, we did not feel it was fair to ask the Philadelphia Zoo to delay their own plans. This decision, as difficult as it was, also will give us the opportunity to focus our attention even further on some of the recent financial challenges that we have been working to resolve."

Grant Healey, a Maryland Zoo vice president, said in an interview that the 131-year-old zoo has struggled financially for years, and that it would shift $5.5 million in state money that was pegged for the elephant exhibit to more pressing infrastructure needs, such as upgrading its storm-water system.

"We're going to slow the timing of the elephant expansion," he said.

This is not the first time the zoo - which Maryland leases from the city of Baltimore and which a nonprofit operates - has been in financial trouble. Three years ago, it was considering lending out its elephants for breeding to solve a cash crisis but reversed course when zoo supporters contributed more than $1 million to keep the animals.

Activists renewed their call yesterday for the Philadelphia Zoo to send all four of its elephants to the Elephant Sanctuary, a 2,700-acre preserve in Tennessee that houses primarily Asian elephants - where Dulary has been accepted.

"Local activists applaud the decision not to send Kallie, Bette and Petal to the Maryland Zoo and call on the Philadelphia Zoo to send the elephants to a sanctuary where they will have the hundreds of acres they need to roam," said Marianne Bessey, a spokeswoman for Friends of the Philly Zoo Elephants. "That's what the zoo should be working on."

But the sanctuary is not accepting African elephants now, said Carol Buckley, its co-founder and executive director, and would not do so unless it expanded its African habitat, where three elephants now live.

"It would take $3 million and a minimum of a year," Buckley said.

Valerie Trivigno, a member of the Friends group, said she still hoped the Africans would find a sanctuary home.

"Whether it happens," she said, "that's what we're hoping for."