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The ANIMAL PEOPLE file on Scott Riddle of Riddle's Elephant and Wildlife Sanctuary in Greenbriar, Arkansas, began with a 1986 report by Jane Neufeld of the Daily Telegram in Garden City, Kansas, that Lee Richardson Zoo director Dan Raffa had requested a USDA probe into the death of a 23-year-old elephant named Twinkles.

Riddle, a former Los Angeles Zoo elephant keeper, and Gary Jacobson, a former L.A. Zoo elephant ride concessionaire, had allegedly used an electroshock device to try to get Twinkles aboard a truck, after buying her for a zoo that Jacobson ran in Florida.

Neufeld said she had been contacted "by four persons from the Los Angeles area." Among them were Carol Buckley, who founded The Elephant Sanctuary at Hohenwald, Tennessee, in 1994, but was then identified as "a Los Angeles area elephant owner," and Pat Wyatt, "a former Los Angeles Zoo employee who worked with elephants when Riddle was at the zoo." That was from the 1960s into the early 1970s, and again from about 1980 until the early 1990s, according to then-L.A. Zoo curator Ed Alonzo.

Both Buckley and Wyatt "expressed concern about the proper and improper use of electricity on elephants. Both referred to deaths of [two] elephants at the L.A. Zoo while Riddle worked there," wrote Neufeld. Each elephant died from injuries apparently resulting from conflict with other elephants.

Alonzo said he believed electric shocking devices had been used on elephants during Riddle's time at the L.A. Zoo, but--as Neufeld put it--"said that the zoo did not consider the deaths to be attributed to Riddle."

Riddle was apparently never charged with any offense. But rumors that he handles elephants roughly resurfaced from totally different sources in 1994, after Riddle opened a "comprehensive school in elephant training, handling, and safety procedures" at the Arkansas site, which Riddle then billed as a "breeding farm and wildlife sanctuary."

Riddle's star guest instructor was Robert "Smoky" Jones--a trainer long unpopular with animal rights activists.

ANIMAL PEOPLE sought the perspective of two of Jones' colleagues: Arlen Seidon, a performing elephant trainer for 40 years before founding the Animal Education, Protection, & Information Foundation sanctuary in Fordland, Missouri, and Doug Cook, who trained both elephants and dolphins.

Seidon said he had once employed Jones, but dismissed him because he was "just too damned rough."

Cook called Jones "one of the top four" elephant trainers in the world, but confirmed that his technique for "adjusting" the behavior of difficult elephants could be considered "pretty rough."

Riddle was linked again to electro shocking elephants in December 1999, when David Harrison of the London Sunday Telegraph revealed that, "Electric goads, prohibited under European Association of Zoos guidelines, are being used on four Asian elephants at the Blackpool Zoo. Keepers routinely carry the implements when working in close proximity to the four elephants. The elephants are trained by Scott Riddle, an American elephant consultant."