Leo favored the third alternative, although he told the board that only a fifty-fifty chance existed that the “retraining” would work, and added, “This is a very difficult decision, given Cindy's popularity in our community.” Leo suggested that only three alternatives were available: sell Cindy sell Cindy and buy a baby African elephant, which would cost from $20,000 to $30,000, including subsidiary costs or hire a trainer to retrain Cindy at a cost of $32,000 to $35,000. Tacoma zoo director Gene Leo told board members, “Several staff members have been hit, picked up, rapped and thrown.” Keepers had been instructed not to work around Cindy. Why Cindy hasn't killed or maimed someone already is a complete mystery to me, but it is only a matter of time until she does so.” The News Tribune quoted this portion of the letter: “ by far the most aggressive, malevolent elephant I've ever seen. At that meeting a letter from Roger Henneous was read. Tacoma's Metropolitan Park District Board, which oversees the Point Defiance Zoo, met in October of 1982. It was during Maguire’s “retraining” that Johnson, according to Tacoma’s News Tribune, “broke down and sobbed at the sight.” Maguire’s week with Cindy, like Henneous’s five days, ended in frustration. Called “The Hammer,” Maguire breaks “bad” or “rogue” elephants. Point Defiance then hired Richard Maguire. At one point, after he tapped her on the nose with a training tool known as a bull hook, Cindy stuck her trunk through the bars and knocked Henneous to the floor. Henneous’s five days with Cindy were frustrating.
Zoo workers have a healthy respect for elephants, and rightly so although the public believes lions, tigers, and bears are the most ferocious zoo residents and circus performers, those zoo and circus workers who are killed or injured most often fall victim to elephants. “If something should happen to Rich, or if he would choose to work somewhere else, no one could get close to her.”Įarly that summer of 1982 Point Defiance hired Roger Henneous, the senior keeper of elephants at Washington Park Zoo in Portland, Oregon, to evaluate Cindy’s behavior, to “retrain” her, and to train keepers to care for her. She had become a “one-person elephant,” Tacoma’s zoo curator said. But Cindy never struck Johnson, and on his days off, because Cindy scared other keepers, Johnson came in to clean her stall.
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