Features

SAN FRANCISCO — All trucks heading to the Golden Gate Bridge were stopped and inspected Sunday in a security move requested by Gov. Gray Davis’ anti-terrorism advisers. 

The inspections stopped Monday at 4 a.m. 

Dwight “Spike” Helmick, commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, said there was no specific threat to the bridge that prompted the extra security. 

The decision was approved and set up quickly to take truck drivers by surprise. Officers checked drivers’ licenses, log books and inspected the trucks for hazardous materials or anything else suspicious. 

OAKLAND — The death of the Oakland Zoo’s latest baby elephant hit its mother, and the elephant manager, hard. Now, after weeks of deliberation, the zoo has decided to continue its elephant breeding program. 

Dohani was believed to have been accidentally gored by its mother, Lisa, when it was 10 days old. Dohani died Sept. 9. 

Dohani was a hope for the elephant world and would have helped validate the zoo’s policy of not disciplining the elephants with electric prods or bull hooks. And it would have restored the social structure seen in matriarchal wild elephant societies. 

Colleen Kinzley, zoo curator and elephant manager, wrestled with whether to scrap the breeding program. But after consulting with an elephant researcher, Cynthia Moss, Kinzley decided to press on with the program. 

She even has been inquiring about artificial insemination and has been contacting zoos as far away as Europe to add to the exhibit.