Panic could have caused a 3-ton mother elephant to attack and kill a handler at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, zoo officials said Tuesday. Zoo president Dr. Barbara Baker said the elephant, called M., could have become spooked while on a daily walk Nov. 18 with handler Michael Gatti and her 3-year-old calf. “Our investigation concluded that this tragedy was an accident with a unique set of variables,” Baker said. “She may have felt trapped.” The six-week investigation was conducted by zoo officials and two consultants. Gatti, 46, of Butler, died at UPMC Presbyterian hospital about an hour after he was knocked to the ground and crushed by the African elephant. Baker, a veterinarian, said the elephant stopped, turned and tried to flee, but found herself surrounded on three sides by a hillside and lamppost on her left, her calf behind her and a flat-bed maintenance truck on her right. The elephant’s defense mechanisms might then have caused her to switch from a “flight” to “fight,” causing her to charge Gatti. The Allegheny County Coroner’s Office ruled the death of Gatti an accident. An investigation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration found no workplace violations. In a Dec. 17 letter to Baker, area director Robert Szymanski said OSHA found no reason to cite the zoo for not providing a safe workplace. Changes recommended in the OSHA letter already are zoo policy, said Connie George, director of marketing and public relations. The zoo has always used a combination of protected contact, which places a barrier between the handler and the elephant, and free contact, also called hands-on or natural contact. Elephant manager Willie Theison now must be present when other handlers use natural contact. The zoo still is awaiting a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which enforces the Animal Welfare Act, George said. She added that the zoo had been given verbal notification that no violations were found. Gatti and mammal curator Amos Morris were using natural contact the day of the accident. The practice involves developing a rapport with the elephant and directing its movement by use of a short staff called an ankha. “The tool was not used inappropriately anytime before or after the accident,” Baker said. The zoo’s investigation was conducted with the help of Gary Miller, zoological manager of elephants for Disney’s Animal Kingdom near Orlando, Fla., and Dave Blasko, director of animal operations for Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, Calif. Theison said M. was suffering on Nov. 18 from ventral edema, which causes swelling of the stomach. Exercise is a routine treatment for the condition, which affects 72 percent of elephants. He could not say whether M. would have acted differently had he been there. “She stopped, for whatever reason,” said Theison, who was working in Germany at the time of the accident. “She may have stopped whether she was with Mike (Gatti) or with me. We’ll never know why she stopped. On any given day, anything could startle them.” After the accident, several visitors called to say they had seen M. pushed into a pond by two other adult female elephants after she had disciplined two calves. Theison said the scuffle left M. with scrapes on her legs and back knees and tusk marks on her back. Theison said that in his 9{}1/2} years of working with elephants, he could recall perhaps six times that they became spooked. At the elephant enclosure Tuesday, M. and her calf were walking around in their heated indoor habitat. The zoo is renovating an elephant enclosure that will house a bull elephant in the spring, Baker said. The calves are nearing 3 and 4 years of age, which means their mothers are ready to conceive again. A framed message on the wall beside the exhibit reads: “A member of the zoo family, Mike Gatti, was tragically lost to us in an accident at the zoo Nov. 18, 2002. Mike and his family will forever be in our thoughts and prayers.”

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