COUNCILLORS have agreed to examine elephant care at Blackpool Zoo after animals rights protesters said there was a better way of looking after them.

But zoo bosses insisted at a public meeting of Blackpool Zoo sub-committee on Monday (Januray 29) that they felt it was better to keep things the way they were.

Diane Westwood, member of the Captive Animal Protection Society, who sits on the sub-committee, played a video to the assembled group showing a different way of handling elephants which she said was better for the safety of the animals and keepers.

Called "protected contact" it meant there was always a physical barrier between the keeper and the animal.

The zoo currently operates a "free contact" system where keepers are free to enter and work within the elephants' enclosure.

"I am completely against keeping the elephants in captivity," said Diane Westwood, "but if they have to be kept in the zoo I feel that protected contact is a far better way to manage them."

The video showed keepers at an American zoo tending a mature African bull elephant -- which had killed its keeper nine years ago as he was cleaning its feet -- and administering medicine to the animal while it was in a confining "crush cage". She said this kind of contact with the elephants reduced the risk to both the keepers and the elephants and now this once killer-creature posed very little risk.

But zoo boss Iain Valentine said "protected contact" was wrongly believed to be a new form of elephant management and had been around for more than 20 years, plus it was best suited to bull elephants and difficult cows, not like the elephants at Blackpool zoo.

And he also said the practice involved "time out" -- the withdrawal of food or water until the animal responded correctly to a command -- a practice he thought was "disgusting".

He said administering medical treatments to the elephants could also be a problem if the elephant did not want to enter the crush cage.

The aspect of safety was also raised as Mr Valentine pointed out that keepers at zoos using the "protected contact" method in San Diego and Toledo had been injured by elephants.

It was decided that more information about the two different practices would be collected before the next meeting and the possibility of a demonstration on how "protected contact" could work at the zoo was also mentioned.