Inside Busch Gardens: Former Employees’ Accounts Raise Serious Questions About Elephant Welfare
For decades, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay has marketed itself as a place where conservation, education, and entertainment work hand in hand. Visitors encounter elephants, great apes, big cats, and other animals while being told that the park’s wildlife programs contribute to research, conservation, and public awareness.
Behind that public image, however, former employees describe a very different reality.
In interviews with Weeping Elephant Project and in a formal complaint submitted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), former staff allege a years-long decline in animal welfare standards, chronic turnover among experienced personnel, increasing secrecy around animal care, and repeated failures to address concerns raised by the people closest to the animals. According to those former employees, the problems are not limited to a single department or a single species. They describe a culture that, in their view, has become increasingly resistant to criticism and accountability. The complaint states that more than 80 zoo employees have left since 2021, and that dozens of animals — including eight great apes — have died in that time. Former staff also describe stress reactions in other species, including orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, cheetahs, and birds, during the same fireworks displays scrutinized in the elephant program. Earlier this month, Carina, a 54-year-old elephant, was euthanized following a string of elephant-down emergencies — the most recent example, according to a new anonymous tip received by WEP, of a pattern that has continued largely out of public view.
Among the most troubling allegations are those involving the park’s elephants.
Weeping Elephant Project has obtained a formal complaint submitted to federal regulators in October 2024. The complaint contains detailed allegations regarding elephant welfare at Busch Gardens, including repeated reports of fireworks-related distress, concerns about staffing and training, and a 2022 incident in which Rosie, a 53-year-old Asian elephant, collapsed during a fireworks event and was unable to stand for more than five hours.
Many of those concerns mirror the experiences described by former Busch Gardens employee Rachel Hale.
Hale spent seven years at Busch Gardens and more than a decade working in wildlife care, training, rescue, rehabilitation, and conservation. Before joining Busch Gardens, she worked at Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Gulf World, and Mote Aquarium. Since leaving the park, she has become an outspoken advocate for greater accountability within the zoological industry.
Importantly, Hale does not describe herself as anti-zoo. “I’m not anti-captivity, I’m not pro-captivity, I’m just pro-accountability,” she told WEP.
That distinction matters because neither Hale nor the USDA complaint portrays Busch Gardens as a place filled with uncaring keepers or indifferent veterinarians. In fact, both repeatedly point in the opposite direction. The people raising concerns are current and former animal care professionals who dedicated their careers to caring for wildlife. Their criticisms are directed not at frontline staff, but at leadership decisions, institutional culture, and what they describe as a growing disconnect between those making decisions and those responsible for caring for the animals.
A Turning Point
Throughout her interview with WEP, Hale repeatedly identified one period as a turning point. In 2021, Jenny Mendoza became Zoological Vice President at Busch Gardens.
According to Hale, the years that followed were marked by what she described as a “massive staff exodus.” The formal complaint puts a number on that exodus: more than 80 zoo employees have left since Mendoza became Zoological Vice President in 2021. Experienced employees left across multiple departments. Specialists departed. Institutional knowledge disappeared. The effects, she says, were felt throughout the park. Former staff also described being directed to skip routine care tasks, such as cleaning elephant water sources, during periods of understaffing.
The issue, in Hale’s view, was not simply that employees were leaving. It was who was leaving.
Animal care programs depend heavily on accumulated knowledge. Keepers spend years learning the personalities, medical histories, social dynamics, and behavioral patterns of the animals they care for. That expertise cannot simply be replaced by hiring someone new.
When it comes to elephants, that knowledge is especially important. Elephants are among the most cognitively complex animals on Earth. They form long-term social bonds, maintain intricate relationships, and can live for decades under human care. Understanding how an individual elephant responds to environmental changes, social tension, health issues, or stress often requires years of observation.
According to Hale, that continuity was increasingly lost as turnover accelerated. She described a system in which experienced personnel were leaving while concerns raised by remaining staff were routinely dismissed. She also emphasized that multiple elephant managers cycled through the program during her time at Busch Gardens, yet the underlying problems persisted. In her view, the issue was never a single manager. It was systemic.
The Night Rosie Went Down
For many former employees, no incident better illustrates those concerns than what happened to an elephant named Rosie.
According to both Hale and the USDA complaint, Rosie was displaced by another elephant during a fireworks show at Busch Gardens in July 2022 and was unable to stand for more than five hours. Staff worked throughout the night to get her back on her feet. The situation became so serious that employees feared she might not survive.
"It was a very well-known incident across the park," Hale told WEP. "Even though we all knew we weren't supposed to talk about it."
The complaint alleges that elephant staff believed fireworks contributed to the sequence of events that led to Rosie's displacement. According to former employees, concerns about fireworks and elephant welfare had been raised long before the incident. Staff came to accept that Rosie, distressed during the show, sought comfort from another elephant who, agitated by the noise, displaced her and knocked her to the ground, an explanation reinforced when keepers documented the same pattern during later fireworks displays.
For those employees, the most disturbing aspect of the story wasn't simply that Rosie went down. It was what happened afterward.
"I think the saddest part was the fact that they never even gave thought to stopping the fireworks," Hale said.
According to a former keeper, staff directly asked whether the shows could be paused while Rosie recovered, and the answer was no. For days afterward, she remained stranded in the yard, unable to reach the barn, hindered by a torn ligament and by ramps too steep for her to manage. It meant that when the shows went on, Rosie had no way to retreat from the noise and vibration, left exposed to the very thing staff believed had brought her down. She was ultimately euthanized on November 5, 2024, roughly two years after her collapse, and keepers believe the injuries she sustained that night are what led to her decline.
Carina: A Second Down Emergency, Four Years Later
WEP received an anonymous report on July 6, 2026, describing a pattern of elephant-down emergencies involving Carina, a 54-year-old Asian elephant, culminating in her euthanasia in early July 2026 — almost exactly four years after Rosie’s collapse. According to the source, Carina was “a generally healthy elephant with average age-related health changes” before this sequence of events began.
According to the report, Carina went down and required assistance to stand on three separate occasions within six days: Sunday, June 28; Tuesday, June 30, in a recovery that “took almost 3 hours”; and Thursday, July 2, after which staff made the decision to euthanize her that night. The source states that overnight observation was discontinued after the first night, even though Rosie’s 2022 emergency had prompted more than four months of overnight monitoring, and that Carina was returned to the habitat — including a back-habitat area that the report describes as harder to access in an emergency — rather than being kept in the barn for observation.
The report also states that “Lethal Response and First Aid teams were not notified during at least one of these elephant down emergencies,” and ties the delayed and inconsistent response to ongoing staffing turnover: according to the source, only one current team member has directly experienced a prior down emergency, and that person “returned to the team within the past couple of weeks after not being with the company for over a year.” The source adds that the team conducting Carina’s necropsy is roughly a third smaller than the one that handled Rosie’s.
WEP has not independently verified this account and is treating it as an anonymous tip pending further documentation.
Questions About the Herd’s Future
The same report raises questions about the herd's social stability going forward. According to the source, Karnaudi — Carina’s 36-year-old daughter — is “only socially compatible with one other elephant at the park,” 58-year-old Simba, who has been declining in health for years. Tina, described as having been “extremely bonded” to Carina, is not compatible with either Karnaudi or Simba, raising the prospect ofsocial isolation for multiple elephants in the herd.
A separate submission to WEP made a related case in more detail: the average lifespan for a female Asian elephant in AZA-accredited zoos is roughly 47 years, a threshold three of the four Busch Gardens elephants had already passed even before Carina's death. That source calls for relocating Karnaudi and Tina to a different facility, while stopping short of recommending the same for Simba, whose caretakers describe years of blindness and dementia-like cognitive decline, and for whom a move at this point would potentially be even more traumatic.
Warnings Before Rosie
According to Hale, concerns about noise and environmental overstimulation were not limited to fireworks.
The elephant habitat at Busch Gardens sits amid a theme park environment filled with roller coasters, construction projects, ride machinery, crowds, and frequent noise. Former employees told WEP that concerns had been raised for years about the cumulative impact of those disturbances on the elephants.
Hale described a longstanding debate over how land around the elephant habitat should be used. When the Rhino Rally attraction closed, some staff reportedly hoped the area would eventually be incorporated into the elephant habitat, providing the herd with additional space. Instead, new attractions were developed nearby. One former staff member said newer rides were built closer to the habitat simply because the space was available, and that when staff raised concerns and shared video evidence of animals reacting to nearby construction and fireworks, management dismissed it, saying there was no scientific evidence of harm.
She also alleged that staff conducted decibel readings during fireworks displays and construction projects in an effort to document the sound levels elephants were being exposed to. According to the complaint, decibel readings recorded in the park's internal tracking system between January and late November 2022 — including data from the period surrounding Rosie's collapse — were later found to have been deleted.
Rosie wasn’t the only elephant whose reactions were documented. According to the complaint, another elephant, Karnaudi, repeatedly showed escalating stress behavior during fireworks displays in late 2023 — including running the length of the habitat, throwing herself against enrichment structures, and retreating into the pool — behavior keepers described as uncharacteristic and, at times, serious enough that a keeper stayed with her throughout a show to help her stay calm. More broadly, Hale described an environment of constant, stress-inducing stimulation.
Elephants are capable of detecting low-frequency vibrations over long distances. At Busch Gardens, she said, construction projects, rides, lift systems, crowds, and fireworks created a setting in which animals were continually exposed to noise and vibration, with no meaningful opportunities to escape them. An outside elephant specialist who consulted with the park after Rosie's collapse reportedly told staff she would not recommend placing additional elephants at Busch Gardens, citing the facility's constant exposure to loud music, crowds, and construction so close to the habitat.
“All of the animals at Busch Gardens,” she said, “are constantly being overstimulated.”
The complaint backs up that characterization: former staff reported stress-related behaviors — including agitation, defensive posturing, and avoidance — in orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, cheetahs, and birds during the same fireworks displays scrutinized in the elephant program, suggesting the impact was not confined to a single species or exhibit. One former elephant care employee said keepers tried to offset the impact by setting up feeder toys or scattering food before fireworks began, though it didn't always help — herd members were sometimes seen huddling together, backs to one another, throughout the display. A separate submission described a further, non-fireworks-related risk to other animals: fog machines used during the park's Howl-O-Scream event, alleging that American White Ibis roosting nearby have been found dead the morning after fog-heavy nights, and that a Grey Crowned Crane named Versace was once found unable to right herself after a fireworks-related panic.
Whether that overstimulation directly contributed to Rosie’s collapse remains disputed. What isn’t disputed is that staff were raising concerns about those conditions long before the incident occurred. Some former staff said they were hopeful when the park later introduced a drone show as part of its Summer Nights programming, thinking fireworks might finally be phased out. According to one former employee, that hope faded when the park kept the fireworks anyway, running them alongside the new drone show rather than replacing them.
From Openness to Secrecy
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Hale’s account has nothing to do with fireworks. It has to do with information.
When she first joined Busch Gardens in 2015, Hale described a workplace culture that encouraged communication and collaboration. Animal care staff could review necropsy reports. They could speak directly with veterinarians. They could consult former keepers and professionals at other institutions. Information, while not necessarily shared publicly, was shared internally among those responsible for caring for animals.
According to Hale, that changed dramatically after 2021. She alleges that employees were increasingly discouraged from speaking directly with veterinarians, discussing animal deaths, consulting former staff, or sharing information across departments. Necropsy reports became inaccessible to many employees. Communication was routed through management channels rather than occurring directly between professionals.
“Once Jenny [Mendoza] came into play, we were not allowed to see necropsy reports,” Hale said. “We were not supposed to talk to the veterinarians.”
She also alleges that employees were discouraged from documenting potentially controversial issues in official record systems. One former elephant team member said staff was told to stop logging behavioral changes observed during fireworks in the park's official system, with an implicit warning that continuing to document them could lead to the elephants being taken away from the park.
According to Hale, staff were told that certain information should not be entered into records because auditors or outside reviewers might later see it. One former elephant team member also described a pattern of safety-protocol violations by a member of leadership overseeing elephant operations — including entering elephant space without a spotter present, leaving gates unlocked, and shifting incompatible animals together — while lower-level staff faced discipline for far more minor infractions. That former employee said colleagues raised the issue internally but felt it was never meaningfully addressed.
A separate submission also alleged a broader pattern of workplace complaints, including harassment, being dismissed or inadequately addressed. WEP has not independently verified these claims and is not detailing them further pending additional corroboration. But they appear repeatedly throughout both Hale’s interview and the materials submitted to federal regulators.
For former employees, the issue extends beyond transparency. They argue that restricting information flow also undermines animal care. When keepers, veterinarians, and specialists cannot freely exchange observations and expertise, essential knowledge is lost.
Who Holds Busch Gardens Accountable?
The concerns raised by former employees also extend beyond Busch Gardens itself.
Busch Gardens is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the primary accrediting body for zoos and aquariums in North America. AZA accreditation is widely viewed as evidence that an institution meets professional standards for animal care, staffing, veterinary services, and welfare. The formal complaint raises specific questions about that accreditation record: it alleges that Busch Gardens reported staff as elephant-authorized personnel to AZA even though some had not worked directly with elephants in over a year, and that at least one keeper missed an AZA-mandated training deadline without consequence. Busch Gardens Tampa remains AZA-accredited.
Yet Hale expressed deep skepticism about the effectiveness of the accreditation system.
She argued that serious concerns raised through formal channels often failed to produce meaningful action and alleged that the organization has historically been reluctant to publicly confront problems within member institutions.
She also questioned whether the close relationships that exist within the zoological industry make independent oversight difficult.
Particularly troubling to Hale is the role of Chris Dold, SeaWorld’s Chief Zoological Officer and a prominent figure within AZA leadership — he has served on the AZA Board of Directors since 2020, and was more recently named AZA Chair of the Board. While neither Hale nor the USDA complaint alleges that Dold directly intervened in any specific Busch Gardens welfare matter, Hale argues that the overlapping relationships between corporate leadership and accrediting organizations create the appearance of a system that is too insular and too resistant to criticism.
The complaint describes a separate episode that former staff says illustrates the same dynamic. According to the complaint, staff was instructed to keep Simba, the park's oldest elephant, out of view during a February 2024 visit by Scott Ross, chairman of the board of Busch Gardens' parent company, so that he would not see her showing signs of age-related decline. When employees later raised the incident, leadership denied giving that instruction, despite multiple staff members saying it happened. A separate submission raised a related concern: Stewart Clark became president of Busch Gardens Tampa in June 2023 while married to Kelly Flaherty Clark, the parent company's Corporate Vice President of Animal Wellbeing and Management — the executive with direct oversight of the welfare concerns described throughout this piece.
Those concerns are not unique to Busch Gardens. They reflect broader debates within the zoo industry about transparency, peer review, and whether existing oversight mechanisms are sufficiently independent.
A Separate Account Involving Zoological VP Jenny Mendoza
A separate submission to WEP raised a specific concern about Jenny Mendoza’s credibility. According to that source, Mendoza was the supervisor on duty at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010 when the orca Tilikum killed trainer Dawn Brancheau, and testified in the subsequent legal proceedings that Brancheau had followed all company protocols. The submitter states that Mendoza told them privately, in a one-on-one meeting years later, that Brancheau had not followed protocol that day — the opposite of her sworn account. WEP has not independently verified this claim or reviewed the underlying court record, and is presenting it as a single-source, secondhand allegation pending further corroboration.
The Question at the Center of the Story
What these complaints and testimonies provide is a detailed account from people who spent years inside one of America’s most prominent zoological institutions, and who ultimately concluded that the systems responsible for protecting animal welfare were failing. The consistency of the concerns — from turnover and staffing shortages to fireworks, recordkeeping, transparency, and oversight — raises questions that deserve serious examination.
Animals like elephants depend on stability. They depend on experienced caregivers. They depend on institutions willing to listen when those caregivers identify problems. For animals that can live seventy years and maintain lifelong social bonds, those things are not optional. They’re the foundation of ethical care.
Weeping Elephant Project will continue investigating animal welfare concerns at Busch Gardens and other facilities housing elephants. Current and former employees with relevant information may contact WEP confidentially via our report a welfare concern page.