Reddit mentions of Wanda and Winky

Elephants are meant to roam. It's not just circuses that harm them, but even keeping them in zoos can be damaging to their health.

The Detroit Zoo did something fairly remarkable ~10 years ago. They had undergone an upgrade of the elephant enclosure to try to make it more comfortable for the elephants, but when they finished it they decided it still wasn't good enough just in the sense that elephants are meant to walk many miles every day and couldn't do that without much more space. So even after spending the money to upgrade their enclosure, the Zoo made the decision to send the elephants to the Performing Animal Welfare Society's sanctuary in California where they could roam freely for the rest of their lives.

Shockingly, the Association of Zoos & Aquariums flipped out and threatened to pull the Detroit Zoo's accreditation if they went ahead with the plan, but the Detroit Zoo stuck to their decisions and essential called the bluff of the AZA, who eventually backed down. The elephants were transported by train to the sanctuary and lived out the rest of their lives in comfort. The Detroit Zoo has stated it will never house elephants again and has encouraged guests inquiring about it to donate to sanctuaries instead that house elephants formerly confined to zoos and circuses.

You can read more about it here: https://detroitzoo.org/about/your-detroit-zoo/elephants/

And you can read more about the Performing Animal Welfare Society here (they're well worth donating a few dollars to if you're able): http://www.pawsweb.org/

Edit 1: Accidentally referred to the Association of Zoos & Aquariums as the American Zoological Society (the Detroit Zoo is run by the Detroit Zoological Society). Fixed to point out it was the AZA that didn't like the Detroit Zoo's decision.

Edit 1.5: A lot of questions about why the AZA opposed the Detroit Zoo's decision. I didn't mean it to come off like the AZA is a bunch of monsters. Far from it. My recollection is they wanted the Detroit Zoo to send the elephants to another AZA zoo, presumably to avoid it looking like one of their members suggesting that no zoo is capable of humanely housing elephants (which, I believe IS what the Detroit Zoo was indeed suggesting anyway). It's not that the AZA didn't/doesn't believe in giving elephants adequate space to roam, it was that the Detroit Zoo (and since then other zoos) disagreed with what "adequate" means in terms of elephants.

Edit 2: There is a children's book that was published a couple years ago about the two Detroit Zoo elephants that I've heard is great for kids. It's called Wanda and Winky: The True Story of the Detroit Zoo's Last Two Elephants. https://smile.amazon.com/Wanda-Winky-Linda-K-McLean/dp/0997481005/

Edit 3: Here's the Detroit Zoo's director talking in 2015 about the decision to move the elephants 10 years earlier, along with footage of a happy Wanda & Winky at the sanctuary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxqslJsXPZg