"Wir fanden ihn im Zoo bei den Elefanten."
Translation:We found him in the zoo, with the elephants.
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That sounds more correct to me. "... with the elephants." sounds like he is in the enclosure with them.
"... by the elephants" sounds like he is near the elephants but not actually between them.
Although, if he was at a safari park rather than a zoo he might be "with the elephants".
I think they just left off some of the context..... Wir fanden ihn im Zoo bei den Elefanten. Er wurde zu Tode getrampelt.
1658
We need a native German speaker to comment on this. Does this sentence mean he is inside the elephant compound, or just next to it, looking at the elephants? In English, "with the elephants" suggests he is in the compound, while "by the elephants" says he is near or just next to the compound.
There is a rule/guideline that "general" normally precedes "specific", ie "Zoo" should precede "bei den Elefanten".
Works totally fine as a sentence.
You rearrange the "narration" a bit, though. The original sentence sounds like "we found him at the zoo; to be exact, we found him with the elephants / at the elephant compound"; your sentence sounds like "we found him with the elephants that are at the zoo / at the elephant compound of the zoo". Doesn't make an actual difference, of course, just saying.