PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Fanny the elephant has won her freedom.
In a surprise turnaround, Pawtucket, R.I., Mayor Robert E. Metivier abandoned his crusade to keep open the small, outdated Slater Park Zoo and agreed Thursday to move Fanny and all of the zoo's estimated 150 animals to other facilities.
'Finally, Fanny will get to run free. It makes me cry,' said Eclipse Neilson, founder of the Committee fo Free Fanny.
Fanny, who is 48, has been the zoo's star attraction for the past 35 years. She lives alone in cramped quarters with a chain around her ankle.
Metivier's decision came one day after the Pawtucket City Council reaffirmed its commitment to close the dilapidated zoo by July 1 and rejected his suggestion that voters decide the issue by referendum.
Even though local businessmen volunteered their time and resources to improve the zoo in an 11th hour effort to save Fanny, Metivier said he 'cannot in good conscience ask these people to move forward ... if the City Council is giving every indication that they will not fund the zoo for next year.'
The city had come under increasing pressure from animal rights activists and The Humane Society of the United States to move its most popular attraction, Fanny the elephant, to a more appropriate facility.
Two preserves, Shambala in Alton, Calif., and the Performing Animals Welfare Society, in Galt, Calif., have agreed to take Fanny if the society pays the estimated $8,000 cost of the move.
The city of Pawtucket might have to pay for some of Fanny's California upkeep costs, including her $12,000 annual food bill and construction of suitable quarters.NEWLN: ---
