Co-founder of Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants, Alyne Fortgang (left), cries in despair “I’m so sorry!” after a truck transporting elephants Chai, 36 and Bamboo,48 left for the Oklahoma City Zoo. (© Karen Ducey Photography)
Elephants leave the Woodland Park Zoo in windowless crates strapped on a flatbed trailer on Wednesday, April 15, 2015. Alyne Fortgang, co-founder of Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants and the Elephant Justice Project, and advocates hoping the elephants would go to a sanctuary, and zoo personnel stood by to watch the departure of female Asian elephants Chai, 36, and Bamboo.Fortgang has been advocating to send the elephants to a sanctuary for nine years. After the death of Watoto last year, the Woodland Park Zoo decided to close their elephant program and send them to the Oklahoma City Zoo.