Willie Theison, renowned elephant manager at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, oversaw the birth of two baby elephants (Angelina and Zuri) within weeks of each other in July. He was involved with a recent National Geographic special looking at elephants in India and the conflict between them and the human population.

Q: What has the interaction been like between the mother elephants and their new babies at the zoo?

A: The mothers are absolutely perfect. They are doing everything textbook that we could ever imagine them doing.

Q: Is it true that in the wild elephants roam hundreds of miles a day?

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A: No, they will average probably 20 to 30 miles a day. It's in search of food. They are not wandering because they know they need to do that, it's just that the water sources are in certain, particular areas. The water holes are usually few and far between. So it averages about 20 to 25 miles a day.

Q: How does the lack of roaming impact the lives of elephants in the zoo?

A: Well, we provide everything they need so they don't have to roam. Even in the wild, if everything was in one area they wouldn't roam. Elephants want to utilize the least amount of energy to accomplish whatever they want to accomplish. We set up an exercise program for them. We log anywhere from 3 to 5 miles in the morning with them depending on the time that we have to walk them. We do a little stretching. We do a little running.

Q: What do you say to those who believe there is not enough room to justify breeding elephants in captivity?

A: You can literally give them hundreds and hundreds of acres but they are going to stay where the babies are in a breeding group. They have all gotten into the smallest stall that we have available and they are very happy there.

Q: We've learned so much in the past 30 years about elephant society and how damaging breaking up family groups can be.

A: Our female Moja was pulled from her mother when she was about 3 years old, which we would never, ever condone. I would fight that to the end. We would never do that.

Q: How much time have you spent with elephants in the wild?

A: Actually I have only been over to [Africa] one time for a research project we are doing in connection with the Pittsburgh Zoo. It was four weeks. We were looking at the stressors that occur when you take a group of elephants and relocate them.

Q: There have been several articles written about the stressors on young elephants who have watched their mothers being slaughtered by poachers or for culling.

A: Cullings are not a pretty situation, so the elephants that do survive that I'm sure are affected by that. But, I think saying that is the reason an elephant in its 20s and 30s would lash out at a keeper -- I don't buy that at all. I've spent too many years with too many elephants to think that would be the case.

Q: What do you think caused the elephant to kill the handler at the Pittsburgh Zoo in 2002?

A: There were actually a number of variables that were in place at the time. For whatever reason -- and we will probably never ever know -- that elephant stopped on the path and immediately turned around and tried to go the other direction. I have logged thousands of walks through the zoo with any number of the elephants that we have here -- except Jackson [the bull elephant] -- and never had that occur. So whatever made her stop and abruptly turn as if there was a wall there and there were no visible signs of anything that would spook her or scare her. At that point she was faced with that fight or flight mentality. Hers was flight. Something scared her and her first instinct was to get away. The handler, not seeing anything that would do that to her, was trying to make her cross over that threshold. The more he worked with her, the higher her anxiety level got. To an elephant being in a horizontal position is the most vulnerable position they have, so when Mike slipped and went horizontal that is when she went after him. It happened very quickly.

Q: Do elephants really mourn their dead?

A: We saw it here with Savannah, our female who had two babies, Callie and now Angelina, but her first one was a stillborn. There was definite mourning over that baby. It was very sad to watch. She had the baby and we left her with it and she would go get hay from another room and just stand next to the baby and keep touching the baby and talking to it. We finally got her out and took the baby away and when she came back for the next two days, the exact spot, Patricia, where she had that baby she stood all night long.

Q: How important are zoos to conservation efforts and are the efforts for elephants in the wild working?

A: I have a definite idea on how zoos should be exhibiting elephants. If our educational message is that they live in herds and are great caring animals then you really have to display them in that light. If you go to a zoo and see one or two elephants, I don't really see how the visiting public can get that vision. The elephants [in the wild] are so overpopulated now. They are looking at contraceptive efforts. In India the elephants are coming out of the forests and they are hitting the farms and the houses looking for food. There is a major conflict and I don't believe there is going to be a real easy answer.