January 10, 2007 -- On the very day the El Paso Zoo's new director arrived in town, so did a new report that lists the zoo among the nation's worst for elephants.

In Defense of Animals is giving the El Paso Zoo a "dishonorable mention," which is better than last year when it made the Top 10 Worst List for elephant habitats.

The reasons: the alleged beating of Juno by zoo supervisor, Allan Seidon, which KFOX broke last year and which led to Seidon's firing and city council's failure to look at expanding and enriching Juno and Savannah's home, something it voted to do more than a year ago.

Administrators at El Paso Zoo told KFOX the new zoo director, Steve Marshall, would not be available to make a comment on this report.

City council is expected to take up the elephant controvery at its Feb. 6 meeting.

However, city council also voted in July 2005 to check back into the elephant issue in six months; that would make it January 2006.

To date, it has never seriously considered a possible elephant expansion.