Cher is gonna be pissed! The beloved L.A. Zoo elephants she went to bat for -- Billy and Tina -- were secreted outta the zoo under the cover of darkness last night ... TMZ has learned.
00:00The elephants of L.A. Zoo, Billy and Tina, were moved in secret, pretty much, from the L.A. Zoo, middle of the night, just pulled them right out of their enclosure, which people were already saying was way too small.
00:17They did it at 1.30 in the morning, so the protesters wouldn't know.
00:21So these two elephants have been in captivity, and Cher has taken this up in a lot of animal organizations.
00:27It's cruel. The L.A. Zoo wants to send them to the Tulsa Zoo, which is another. It's like, why would you do this?
00:34The L.A. Zoo has no longer met the standard for them, so they have to be moved.
00:38What everybody wanted was put these animals in a sanctuary and not another zoo.
00:43I made 50 calls. I was on the phone calling people at the zoo, and they were saying, we're not going to talk, and they put us on hold.
00:51Time out. They said that they looked at putting them into sanctuaries, but they made the decision to move the elephants to the Tulsa Zoo,
00:57based off their health and well-being of the individuals.
00:58Then why did they do this in the middle of the night?
01:00Harvey, you want an elephant walk during the day? It's probably convenient.
01:03Courtney, in their statement, do they explain why they did it in the middle of the night?
01:06No.
01:07No.
01:07If you're going to do it, stand on it.
01:09Don't sneak them out in the middle of the night.
01:10Right.
01:11The other pitch of the same story is the L.A. Zoo did something great last night.
01:14They sent two elephants that were willing to take these larger animals to a much bigger enclosure in Tulsa.
01:19Time for the L.A. Zoo, looking out for the animals.
