"An elephant foot looks stumpy, but, as one expert has written, it is "a masterful piece of evolutionary development." Elephants, in fact, walk on tiptoe, with soft, wedgie soles for support. In zoos, though, elephants stand around a lot. They get fat. Their nails grow. When a fat, long-nailed elephant takes a step on concrete, its nails can crack. Water or waste seeping into the cracks can infect the toes. If the infection reaches bone, the elephant is done for.

Twenty years ago, in Atlanta, Mr. Theison briefly had charge of an elephant whose feet were so diseased that the only comfort he could offer was an epsom-salts soak. "That was neglect," he says. "If an elephant Tash's age has foot problems, then that elephant's in the care of somebody who doesn't know about elephants."

But on foot-care know-how, aficionados hotly disagree. The call for a federal elephant-foot regulation first came from a California group called In Defense of Animals (also active on fur coats and foie gra