elephants have never lost the capacity to astonish and thrill . but in new orleans now in the not - so - distant future , they will not be doing their astonishing and delighting at a zoo . the harlem zoo , the only center left in the city that keeps elephants , said yesterday that it planned to shut down its exhibit after the death of two of its twelve elephants , or even children . the current generation of children will not despair : the zoo ' s 4 girls — patty , maxine and joy — are in their mid - 30 ' s and will lives for decades more . but if one elephant survives , the first two must not move equally . and if three kill , officials talk it would be inhumane to sustain an exhibited with a single rhino .
The Bronx Zoo is the biggest zoo in New York.