Brookfield Zoo officials denied Suburban Life’s Freedom of Information Act request for the release of Affie the elephant’s necropsy report in a letter Oct. 29.

Affie, one of the zoo’s African elephants, died last May from heart failure at age 40.

In Defense of Animals, a California-based animal advocacy group, also sought the necropsy report in October saying that Affie’s “sudden death raises important questions that can only be answered through the public disclosure of her veterinary records and final necropsy report,” said Catherine Doyle, the IDA’s campaign manager. Doyle said the IDA received no response from the zoo.

Ken Kaduk, the senior vice president of finance and administration for the Chicago Zoological Society, which manages Brookfield Zoo, explained why the zoo did not have to release the report requested in the FOIA.

The Chicago Zoological Society, Kaduk wrote, is a “private sector, not-for-profit corporation,” and the FOIA applies only to public and government organizations.

“The Chicago Zoological Society manages Brookfield Zoo for the Cook County Forest Preserve District on a fee-for-service basis,” Kaduk wrote.

“The Chicago Zoological Society gets a portion of its funding from the FPD and presents an annual budget to the Forest Preserve District, but the Society hires all of its own staff, sets its own salaries and fringe benefits and is free to manage its affairs and operations separate and apart from any government involvement. The Society is not a government entity or a political subdivision of the State of Illinois,” Kaduk wrote.

“We respectfully deny your information request on the basis that the Society is a private, rather than a public entity, and we do not disclose such information.”