2 Elephants at Zoo Kept Chained in Cramped Barns : Abuse: Criticism by the private keeper of the animals, which for six years gave rides at the zoo, adds fuel to a controversial subject.

Two elephants, which have worked at the San Diego Zoo giving rides for six years, have spent more than 18 hours a day chained in cramped camel barns since the zoo last week severed a contract with the company that owns them.

Since Oct. 12, when the zoo abruptly fired Trunk & Hump, the elephant and camel ride company, it has not allowed the elephants, Katie and Gypsy, to play in its recreation areas, according to their keeper, Steve Whitebread. When Whitebread let them exercise in the smaller ride area, he said, zoo officials told him to stop because they were ruining the foliage. Whitebread disobeyed.

“I just decided there’s no way we’d leave them chained up all day,” he said. “The zoo cut us off. Their attitude is, ‘Just keep (the elephants) quiet, don’t let anybody see them, and get them out of here as soon as possible.’ ”

The zoo’s eagerness to hide the elephants was evident Friday morning, when employees put up four 8-foot wooden barriers to hide Katie and Gypsy from public view. Georgeanne Irvine, a zoo spokeswoman, said the blinds were erected after a keeper saw a family climb the low fence and begin petting the animals. “It was a potential safety hazard,” she said.

Irvine acknowledged that the elephants have not used zoo recreation areas all week, but attributed that to a series of misunderstandings. Whoever told Whitebread that the areas were off-limits was mistaken, she said.

“We realize they need to exercise,” she said.

Whitebread’s criticism comes at a time when the zoo is particularly sensitive about its treatment of elephants because of news stories last year about Dunda, an elephant that was beaten by its keepers after being moved from the zoo to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Whitebread said zoo officials have told him that, because they expect national news attention to focus on the Soviet arts festival, which kicks off Sunday, they want the Trunk & Hump animals out by Monday.

Whitebread said that is impossible. His employer, Trunk & Hump owner Marty Dinnes, has a ranch in Saugus, north of Los Angeles, where he can put the two camels, Doc and Walter, still living at the zoo. But the elephants will be harder to house.

“They didn’t give him any notice, so he’s not sure what to do with them,” Whitebread said. Dinnes was in New York on Friday and could not be reached.

Last week, zoo officials said they had canceled the contract with Dinnes because of space constraints. Jeff Jouett, a zoo spokesman, said animals from the zoo’s Chit Chat Show will be moved into the area until a $5.5-million renovation of their home, Wegeforth Bowl, is complete.

Irvine said the zoo’s contract with Dinnes specifies that each party would give 30 days’ notice before canceling the rides, but she said that last week both had agreed to end the rides immediately and that the zoo would pay Dinnes for 30 more days, about $14,000.

From Oct. 12 until Friday, the two Asian elephants had spent most of their time in the camel barns, with chains around one front and one hind leg. Because of the configuration of the open-air barns, the animals cannot be together. Because of poor drainage, they often stand for hours in their own urine. Whitebread, who feeds the elephants and cleans their cages twice a day, said they have sorely missed what used to be a thrice-weekly ritual: their visits to the zoo’s elephant recreation area.

“They hate being chained,” said Whitebread, a part-time San Diego State University student who has worked with Katie and Gypsy since they arrived at the zoo six years ago. “They used to love playing and swimming in that yard.”

As Whitebread spoke with a reporter and photographer Friday, Tom Hall, the zoo’s operations manager, appeared. “Have you heard?” he asked Whitebread. “You can use our recreation area any time you want.”

Whitebread thanked him, but later said: “Of course I hadn’t heard. He hadn’t told me. They’ve never let us use the yard any time we want. Never.”

Whitebread says that for years he has asked the zoo to make changes in the camel barns that would improve the elephants’ living conditions. He asked for the wall between the two barns to be torn down so the elephants could huddle together. He asked for grooves to be cut into the concrete floors of the barns to provide drainage. In the winter, when the open-air barns left the animals exposed to the cold, he asked for some kind of wind barrier.

“Marty Dinnes said he’d pay for half of anything they did, that he wanted the best, but they wouldn’t do it,” Whitebread said, turning to look at the barriers the zoo had installed Friday. “When I asked, they couldn’t do it. But when they want it done, it happens overnight.”

Irvine said: “We’ve made some improvements, but there haven’t been a lot. Sometimes things move slowly around here.” She said recent estimates showed that it would cost $30,000 to $50,000 to provide the improvements Whitebread requested.

Whitebread said he is worried about what will happen to the elephants once they leave the zoo. Katie, a 23-year-old, rambunctious animal who stands nearly 10 feet tall, will fare best, he said. During her time at the zoo, she has occasionally traveled to other locations to work on movies or magazine photo assignments, he said. “She can adjust to anything.”

But Gypsy is older and more set in her ways. Records put her age at 38 years, but elephant keepers believe that the wrinkled, 8-foot-tall animal may be as old as 60. “It’s hard to say, because every time an elephant is sold, they knock a few years off to get a better price,” Whitebread said.

“Every time Katie went away, Gypsy would just cower without her,” said Steve Friedlund, a keeper who works with the zoo’s elephants. “She’s just a frightened old lady elephant. She’s worn out.”

Friedlund said he believes Whitebread has done a good job with the elephants, given the limited resources available to him. “But wherever Marty Dinnes takes these elephants next and whatever yahoo help he hires--who knows what these elephants will suffer.”

A spokesman for the Humane Society of San Diego, Larry Boersma, said it has been two weeks since the society received any complaints about Gypsy and Katie. The society investigated those complaints, which alleged that the animals were not being well cared for, but found no basis for intervention, he said.