Maybe the blame is on Disney, which made a fortune humanizing animals.
Forget pink elephants on parade. In the Old Pueblo anthropomorphic outrage marches on over the Reid Park Zoo's decision to split elephants Connie and Shaba after 29 years together.
Connie, a 44-year-old Asian elephant, will move to the San Diego Zoo to receive geriatric care and be with other Asian elephants. In return, an African elephant herd will come live with Shaba, a 31-year-old African elephant, in Reid Park's new seven-acre exhibit.
The plan - from breeding to socializing to disease control - is clearly in the best interests of all precious pachyderms involved.
But among humans, it has stirred a stampede of lament and anger - not to mention a healthy respect for marriage.
"To separate them now is like splitting a human couple that have been married for 60 years," wrote one poster on the zoo's Facebook page, speculating they may die from broken hearts.
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Another wrote it was like a couple separating after 30 years.
"Most people can understand and grasp the concept of animal bonds," Tracy Toland, an animal advocate and financial office manager, told the City Council.
But do they really understand elephants? Or do they apply Disney-like layers of human emotions to animals? Certainly, elephants have emotions and bonds, but how deep and complex? No one knows.
"We try to be very careful to not project human emotions on animals for fear of being wrong," said Jeff Andrews, the associate curator of mammals for San Diego Zoo Global.
Take Connie and Shaba. Andrews has been working with them and their trainers for five years. At first, Connie and Shaba struggled when separated during training sessions. A sure sign of their tight bond, right?
"It was mostly due to their lack of training," Andrews said. "It had nothing to do with the dependency of the elephants on one another." After a few weeks of training, they adjusted, he said.
Elephants are smart, have a "remarkable sense of smell" and outstanding memories, Robert Dale, a psychology professor at Butler University, told me.
For nearly 22 years, Dale has researched elephant memory and interactions. He can rattle off astounding facts about elephants: They have an elaborate greeting ceremony that can involve trumpeting, intertwining trunks and spinning around.
Like humans, apes and dolphins, they possess self-awareness. Reunite two elephants after 10 years apart, and they will recognize each other. They can even recognize bones of deceased elephants they once knew.
We know Connie and Shaba will remember each other, and if they were ever reunited, they would recognize each other. It's less clear, though, whether they will miss each other.
"That's not as easy to demonstrate," Dale said. "If they were separated and kept alone, that would likely be traumatic for them."
And that's the key detail: Elephants are social, and as long as Connie and Shaba are with other elephants they should transition just fine.
If each lives with other elephants, "they will interact with other elephants and be a part of the group," Dale said.
At 44, Connie is getting up there. If she stays and dies in Tucson, Shaba would be alone.
The herd coming to Tucson will breed future generations of elephants. Having elephants in herds from the same region of the world helps limit the spread of viruses between species. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums says it's best to have at least three elephants together, and soon Connie and Shaba will have more elephants to socialize with.
"I think what the zoo is doing is very sensible," Dale said.
Sensibility abounds here, except for how the zoo has handled the elephant shuffle.
In recent years, zoo officials fended off efforts to send the elephants to a sanctuary, playing on our desire to project human feelings on the elephants, saying Connie and Shaba had an unbreakable bond. Tucsonans were led to believe this zoo expansion would house not any two elephants, but our two elephants - sort of like lifetime buddies from school.
Now zoo officials are breaking that very bond. They can't even say when the decision was made to ship Connie to San Diego.
And that's something real to be upset about.
Contact columnist Josh Brodesky at 573-4242 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com
