Prickly pachyderm prepares for transfer to Tacoma zoo

SEATTLE – Elephant experts are getting ready to send an ill-tempered 38-year-old pachyderm south to Tacoma, where she’ll join two other females not known for their social graces.

The move is expected to ease tensions at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, where Bamboo’s intolerance for younger elephants and their calves has forced handlers to separate the herd at times.

At Tacoma’s Point Defiance Zoo, Bamboo will live with two fellow Asian elephants, 39-year-old Suki and 41-year-old Hanako.

She’ll be shipped south in a special air-conditioned tractor-trailer, probably arriving in her new home by Labor Day.

The Tacoma zoo is a national leader in handling elephants considered too dangerous to be kept and trained using traditional methods.

The Tacoma zoo’s first “troubled” elephant, Cindy – who died in 2002 – had a history of grabbing and biting people.

Dominant Suki moved in after throwing a handler against the wall and trying to stomp him, and Hanako was sent from the Washington Park Zoo in Portland, because she was unpredictable and moody.

Officials believe Bamboo will be more comfortable at the Tacoma zoo, “with Asian elephants her age and disposition,” Woodland Park curator Nancy Hawkes said.

Point Defiance elephant caretakers have been visiting Bamboo in Seattle, hoping she’ll recognize them once she arrives in Tacoma.

Officials also have been swapping elephant droppings to get the future roommates accustomed to each others’ scents – smell is an elephant’s most important sense.