elephants have never lost the capacity to astonish and delight . but in the guinea , in the not - so - likely event , they will not be doing their astonishing and rejoiced at a zoo . the bronx exhibit , the only zoo left in the city that keeps elephants , said yesterday that it planned to shut down its exhibit after the death of two of its three lions , or already one . the next crop of children did not despair : the zoo ' s three cats — patty , maxine and laughing — are in their mid - 30 ' s and could live for decades more . but if one elephant dies , the remaining two can not get along . and if two survived , residents say it would be inhumane to sustain an exhibit with a single lion .
The Bronx Zoo is the biggest zoo in New York.