HILLSBOROUGH -- Suzanne Roy has a passion for protecting animals. In her home office, one of Roy's five cats, one she bottle-fed as a kitten, lazes in a sun patch. The dog wanders in for a back scratch.

But some of Roy's animal friends are not so furry and definitely too large for the house -- because Roy also has a passion for elephants.

She reaches for a pile of photographs on her desk showing two circus elephants, Tina and Jewel; Tina's leg is chained to a truck tire. Jewel's skull and spine are protruding after she lost 1,000 pounds, one-seventh of her body weight, before the U.S. Department of Agriculture forced the circus to take her off the road.

As program director for In Defense of Animals, an international animal-welfare organization, Roy campaigns to improve the conditions of elephants in zoos and circuses.

Roy, 47, began trying to help captive elephants five years ago while working for IDA in San Francisco. After two elephants at the San Francisco Zoo died within two months of each other, IDA became involved in an effort to move the remaining elephants to a sanctuary. Roy and her colleagues obtained the medical records for the elephants and were shocked at how sick they were.

After the San Francisco Zoo situation, IDA launched an investigation into the prevalence of foot and joint diseases in elephants in zoos nationwide. The results led to the organization's ongoing campaign to change how zoos house and treat elephants.

Since the campaign began, Roy said, 16 zoos have closed their exhibits or decided to phase them out. Last year IDA moved three elephants from zoos to sanctuaries.


Natural connection

Roy first became involved in animal welfare after she answered a newspaper ad for a job with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and started working to stop military animal experiments, notably one in New Orleans where cats were shot in the head.

At the time, Roy said, she knew little about animal-welfare issues. As a cat lover, she was shocked.

"Of course I love all animals, but that's what caught me first, so I stuck with it because I felt like I could do something about it," she said.

Roy said she always cared about animals, even while growing up.

"My mother thought there was something wrong with me, but I could never eat meat that I could see came from an animal. I

couldn't eat chicken on the bones -- I would freak out," Roy said.

In Orange County, Roy also has worked with a group to reduce the amount of time people can chain or tether their dogs.

"I've always felt a natural connection with animals, and sympathy for animals that are abused or neglected," she said.

Through her work with the PCRM, Roy became acquainted with IDA and jumped at the chance to move to California when the director offered her a job in 1991.

In 2004, Roy moved to Hillsborough with her husband, Craig, and daughter, Amelia, 10.

Roy heard about Hillsborough from a friend who lived there. Although she misses California, Roy said she values Hillsborough's artistic atmosphere and sees a commitment to community in the people.

"It has a really nice small town feel," she said.


An elephant's needs From her rambling house in Hillsborough, Roy continues the campaign to improve the treatment of captive elephants. She said the intelligence and self-awareness she sees in the animals gives them a greater capacity for suffering.

Wild elephants are social and free-ranging, easily traveling five to 10 miles a day. Most zoos house elephants in yards that are one acre or less. With little room to walk, the elephants "basically stand in place for years on end," Roy said. Their muscles atrophy from lack of movement, leading to bone-on-bone arthritis, infected feet and pressure sores.

"They reach the point where they can't lie down because they can't get back up," Roy said.

In their natural habitats, elephants live in large matriarchal herds, but zoos typically house groups of two to three unrelated elephants.

"An elephant alone without its family is not really an elephant, it's like a shadow of an elephant," Roy said.

Roy said IDA hopes to see more zoos close their elephant exhibits and move the animals to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee and the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in California. IDA also wants to ban importation of wild elephants and end animal circuses.