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[Excerpted from an article in the Dec 1990 Smithsonian magazine
about a zoo elephant who paints]

When she was 7 months old, Ruby was shipped to the Phoenix Zoo.  Still
being bottle-fed, she was exhibited in the children's section and
became its major attraction.  She thrived physically but not, it seems,
spiritually.  In retrospect, a major problem was that for seven years
Ruby was the zoo's only elephant.  By nature extremely social
creatures, elephants suffer if deprived of companions, but isolation
is probably especially hard on very young animals.  

For whatever reasons -- isolation, disrupted education, insensitive
keepers -- Ruby developed some odd and, for people, unpleasant habits.
Among other things, she played sadistically with ducks and geese who
wandered into her enclosure.  Using grain from her food trough, Ruby
lured them toward her.  When one came close enough, she
surreptitiously raised a front foot and then brought it down quickly,
stomping the unfortunate bird to a pulp.

She masturbated frequently, at times almost incessantly.  Perhaps
because they were the only vaguely elephantlike things she ever saw,
Ruby became enamored, clinically, of dump trucks, bulldozers, and
other large lurching machines.  When one came near, she became ver
excited -- she squealed and pranced.  One morning, a backhoe operator
drove into the elephant area.  When she spotted the "attractive"
machine she charged and attempted to mount it.  "The poor guy was
terrified.  Who wouldn't be?  At least he turned off the motor before
he ran."

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