{"id":6183,"date":"2006-06-15T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-15T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2006\/06\/15\/2006-06-15-hindu-priest-to-conduct-memorial-service-for-gita-the-elephant-of-los-angeles-zoo\/"},"modified":"2006-06-15T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-15T12:00:00","slug":"2006-06-15-hindu-priest-to-conduct-memorial-service-for-gita-the-elephant-of-los-angeles-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2006\/06\/15\/2006-06-15-hindu-priest-to-conduct-memorial-service-for-gita-the-elephant-of-los-angeles-zoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindu Priest to Conduct Memorial Service for Gita the Elephant of Los Angeles Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nbc4.tv\/news\/9366118\/detail.html\">www.nbc4.tv<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, June 13, 2006: Days after Gita the elephant died at the Los Angeles Zoo, animal rights activists Tuesday repeated their call for the mayor and City Council to abandon plans for a 3.5-acre, US$40 million elephant exhibit. They arranged for a Hindu priest to conduct Gita&#8217;s last rites. Chris DeRose, president of Last Chance for Animals, criticized Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for backing a council decision to build the new elephant exhibit, which will now house the zoo&#8217;s two remaining pachyderms, Ruby and Billy. &#8220;Gita is dead because the mayor did not have the strength and conviction to make a compassionate and intelligent decision for the elephants and the people of Los Angeles,&#8221; DeRose said. Villaraigosa&#8217;s office did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Activists say Gita died Saturday morning as a direct result of being kept in inadequate conditions at the zoo. Zoo officials, who are now awaiting the results of a necropsy, believe Gita&#8217;s death resulted from the crushing weight of her frame, which sent a flood of toxins into her bloodstream. Gita suffered from chronic foot problems and arthritis &#8212; the two leading causes of death in captive elephants. Gita had foot surgery last year, but was believed to have been fully healed.<\/p>\n<p>Animal rights activists and members of the Los Angeles Indian community will hold a memorial service for Gita on Tuesday afternoon. A Hindu priest will officiate over the services for the 48-year-old Indian elephant outside the Los Angeles Zoo. &#8220;We are honored to be joined by a priest from the Hindu Temple in Malibu in remembering Gita, not as a zoo specimen, but as an individual with a history, a family and a homeland,&#8221; said Catherine Doyle of In Defense of Animals. &#8220;She suffered immensely in the zoo and her premature death will not be in vain.&#8221; Activists say elephants live to be 70 years old in the wild. But zoo officials said elephants in captivity generally live to be about 42, making Gita an older elephant.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.nbc4.tv LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, June 13, 2006: Days after Gita the elephant died at the Los Angeles Zoo, animal rights,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}