The Wildlife Conservation Society confirmed a June site visit to The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, to evaluate a possible transfer for Patty, a 57-year-old Asian elephant who is now the sole remaining animal of her kind at the Bronx Park institution.

The Bronx Zoo is actively evaluating whether to send Patty — its 57-year-old Asian elephant and the last in its care — to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, following the euthanization of Happy, the zoo's other remaining elephant, in late May.

Bronx Zoo interim director Craig Piper and three members of the elephant care team traveled to the sanctuary's 3,000-acre grounds in Hohenwald, Tennessee in June to tour the facilities and meet staff, Gothamist reported July 6. No decision has been made. "We want to make sure that we feel that it would be the right move for her, and the risks would be outweighed by the potential gains," Piper told Gothamist's Walter Wuthmann.

The zoo euthanized Happy after she showed prolonged symptoms of declining kidney and liver function; a necropsy revealed inoperable uterine tumors and arthritis. Patty and Happy had been separated by a fence for years following a 2002 incident in which a third elephant, Grumpy, died after being attacked by Patty and another elephant named Maxine. Maxine died in 2018.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the Bronx Zoo under a concession agreement with NYC Parks on the 265-acre Bronx Park site, announced in 2006 that it would stop acquiring new elephants and phase out the exhibit when the herd fell to one or two animals. With Patty now alone, that threshold has arrived.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits U.S. zoo institutions, strongly recommends against keeping a single female elephant and typically requires a minimum of three. AZA president Dan Ashe said the Bronx Zoo's care staff are "among the best in the world" and acknowledged a scenario in which the zoo concludes that keeping Patty in Bronx Park is the better choice for her health.

The decision comes after years of legal pressure. Happy was the subject of a 2018 habeas corpus petition filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project, which argued she was an autonomous being entitled to bodily liberty. The New York Court of Appeals sided with the zoo 5-2 in 2022. Nonhuman Rights Project executive director Christopher Berry said the group is calling on the zoo to transfer Patty. Zoo officials said they are not responding to outside pressure — only evaluating what is best for the animal.

The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, between Nashville and Memphis, currently cares for 12 elephants on its 3,000-acre property. Oakland Zoo sent its last elephant there in 2024; the Los Angeles Zoo shuttered its elephant exhibit the same year. If Patty goes, the Bronx Zoo will have ended a program that stretches back to the early 1900s, when the institution kept elephants in its Beaux-Arts Elephant House — a copper-domed structure that still stands near the zoo's Southern Boulevard entrance. The zoo has not announced a timeline for its decision.