2002-12-22 - Vienna, Virginia, United States. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Press release
King Tusk, a 57-year-old male Asian elephant living in retirement with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey®, was humanely euthanized yesterday (Saturday, December 21). A magnificent and beautiful Asian elephant with 6-foot-long tusks, King Tusk was a star performer with Ringling Bros. in the 1980s and early 1990s. He passed away quietly at Ringling Bros. elephant retirement facility in northern Florida in the company of his pachyderm companions and human caretakers.
2002-12-17 - Tinsukia, India.
Drunken elephants have trampled at least six people to death in the northeast Indian state of Assam, local officials say. Police said four of those killed were children. The herd of wild elephants stumbled across the supplies of homemade rice beer after they destroyed granaries in search of food. The incident happened near Tinsukia, 550 kilometres (344 miles) from the Assam capital, Guwahati.
2002-12-17 - Miami, United States. Jane Sutton
A 6,000-pound (2,700 kg) elephant smashed a rookie zookeeper against a rockpile at Miami's MetroZoo, badly injuring the man in what a zoo spokesman described as an attack to test dominance in the herd. The injured zookeeper, Michael Embury, 31, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition after undergoing surgery on Monday, zoo spokesman Ron Magill said. He suffered a broken arm, two broken shoulders, gashes to the head and bruising of the spleen and brain in the Sunday attack but was expec...
2002-12-11 - Kolmarden, Sweden.
Two elephants at one of Sweden's largest zoos may have to be put down after one of them tested positive for tuberculosis, health officials said on Wednesday. Three other elephants at the Kolmaarden zoo, located 150km south of Stockholm, have already been put down after succumbing to the disease. The two elephants, Sandai and Donkey, are 17 and 36-years-old respectively.
2002-11-29 - Pittsburgh, United States. David Conti
Visitors to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium on Saturday will get their first chance to see the elephants since one of the animals killed a trainer earlier this month. Gatti, 46, of Butler, was crushed to death by a 6,200-pound mother elephant called M. on Nov. 18 as he led the animal and its calf on a routine walk around the zoo. The elephant exhibit has been closed since the incident as federal authorities and former elephant manager Theison investigated.
2002-11-19 - Pittsburgh, United States. Ann Belser and Marylynne Pitz
On mornings when weather permits, elephants at the Pittsburgh Zoo are brought out of their enclosure to walk with their keepers around the grounds. Yesterday, two keepers were about halfway around the zoo with a 20-year-old mother elephant and her 3-year-old female calf when the mother elephant stopped near the Northern Shores Cafe building. When the keeper urged her to move along, the elephant butted him and pinned him to the ground with her head, crushing him. The trainer, Mike Gatti, 46, an e...
2002-11-18 - Pittsburgh, United States.
An elephant keeper at the Pittsburgh Zoo died this morning after a 6,200-pound elephant pinned him to the ground, zoo officials announced. An autopsy is scheduled Tuesday on the body of Michael Gatti, 46, of Plank Road, Butler, authorities said. Two zoo keepers were taking the elephant and her calf on a routine walk through the Zoo grounds this morning, when the mother suddenly stopped. Gatti told the elephant to keep moving. But she knocked him to the ground with her head and then pinned him to...
2002-11-04 - Harare, Zimbabwe. Born Free Foundation
The Born Free Foundation, one of the UK's leading wildlife charities, has shocking new evidence that poaching in parts of Africa is soaring, fuelled by the sale of ivory trinkets to French and other tourists. According to The Daily News (Harare June 17, 2002), the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management claims that, 'between 2000 and April this year (2002)…. 92 elephants had died either as a result of poaching, natural mortality, intraspecific fights or some unknown...
2002-10-17 - Chiang mai, Thailand. Jennifer Hile
Jennifer Hile spent two and a half months in Northern Thailand investigating the plight of domestic elephants and elephant orphans and "Elephant Heaven", a sanctuary for abused elephants founded by Sangduen "Lek" Chailert. Chailert is a well-known Chiang Mai–based activist who runs Jumbo Express, a program bringing free veterinary care to elephants.
2002-10-04 - Geneva, Switzerland. CITES
Despite a virtually continuous ban on international trade in ivory since 1989, a series of analytical reports from the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) has revealed that a significant illegal trade in ivory continues.
2002-09-30 - Salt Lake City, United States. University of Utah
The study began after Prestwich identified proteins involved in the action of insect pheromones. He heard Rasmussen deliver a lecture about elephant pheromone and decided to look for proteins that help the pheromone do its job. Rasmussen collected urine and mucus for the study primarily from 14 elephants at Riddle’s Elephant and Wildlife Sanctuary in Greenbriar, Ark.
2002-09-11 - Bangkok, Thailand. Prentiss Riddle
BoingBoing links to the website of the allegedly musical Thai Elephant Orchestra and says, "The elephants not only play with the instruments, they play together on them, jamming in what is clearly recognizable as music." Of course, if we accept John Cage's assertion that noise can be music, the question is not whether elephants can play music but whether elephants can play music that shows signs of (non-random) musical thought.
2002-09-10 - Newcastle, Australia. To HTML by Russell Tayler
He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. ... It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. George Orwell, 1936.
2002-08-28 - Portland, Oregon, United States.
The largest captive land mammal in North America ducks under the doorway. Behind him, a hydraulic steel door wheezes, then slams shut. Packy is isolated, but he is not alone. Outside the cage, attired in work boots and a blue polo shirt, Bob Lee crouches on a stool. Through the steel bars, Packy offers up his foot, and Lee goes to work. He is an elephant pedicurist.
2002-08-16 - Norman, United States. Erowid
In 1962, three men at the University of Oklahoma, lead by the idiosyncratic, CIA-collaborator Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West, injected LSD into an elephant for the first time. Their stated intent was to determine if LSD would induce "musth", a naturally occurring condition in which elephants become violent and uncontrollable. After a series of events, the elephant died. There is some controversy and confusion surrounding the cause of death.
2002-07-26 - Århus, Denmark. Roger Malmer, Ole Simonsen
Tuffie died in 2 July during a tour with Circus Benneweis in Denmark. Tuffie, one of Diana Rhodin's two elephants died in 2 July 2002 in Århus, Danmark during the current tour of Danish Circus Benneweis. According to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten did the lab test show that the cause of death was Samonella poisoning.
2002-07-19 - Yunnan, China.
The Chinese government will spend 50 million yuan (6.02 million US dollars) on building an Asian elephant breeding center in southwest China's Yunnan Province, to better protect the wild creatures from extinction. China began breeding Asian elephants in 1994 in the zoo at Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province. Six Asian elephants have been born there so far.
2002-07-16 - Springfield, Missouri, United States.
The health of an Asian elephant calf infected with a deadly herpesvirus appeared to worsen Tuesday as treatment with an experimental regiment of drugs continued. Officials at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield remained hopeful that the nearly 3-year-old elephant calf, named "Haji," would recover from endothelial inclusion body disease, a herpesvirus specific to elephants. It is generally fatal within five days, zoo spokeswoman Melinda Mancuso said.
2002-05-30 - OSLO, Norway. Reuters
Norway's Prime Minister unwittingly smuggled two elephant tusks to Norway from Nigeria in violation of an international ban on trade in endangered species, officials said yesterday.
2002-05-23 - Springfield, Missouri, United States. Gigi Allianic, Dickerson Park Zoo
The staff of Dickerson Park Zoo is mourning the death of the bull elephant, “Onyx,” who died Wednesday evening, May 22. Onyx is more familiarly know as “Big Mac” to everyone in southern Missouri. Preliminary necropsy results indicate mesenteric torsion with subsequent intestinal rupture as the cause of death.
2002-05-17 - Sydney, Australia. AAP
ARNA the elephant will continue her solo journey with the circus, a court has ruled. Magistrate Paul Lyon today ruled against Animal Liberation NSW claims of cruelty to Arna the Asiatic elephant by Stardust Circus. Mr Lyon cut the case short on the grounds there was no deliberate intent to cause pain to the elephant. "There is evidence that the elephant became distressed and suffered pain," Mr Lyon told the Downing Centre Local Court. "But on reading the legislation the court is of the view that...
2002-03-20 - Nairobi, Kenya. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, STE
At Save the Elephants (STE) our mission is to secure a future for elephants, sustain the beauty and ecological integrity of the places they live, and foster a tolerant relationship between humans and elephants. We have pioneered a GPS tracking system that allows an almost continual stream of data on elephant movement.
2002-03-18 - Chester, United Kingdom.
A zoo keeper who was killed by a bad-tempered elephant had warned that such an accident was likely to happen, an inquest has heard. Richard Hughes, 34, was attacked by a four-ton Asian elephant named Kumara after he tried to move her in her enclosure at Chester Zoo.
2002-02-15 - Halifax, Canada. Randy Jones / Crime Reporter, Halifax Herald
An Ontario man has been charged in the seizure of almost 4,400 pieces of jewelry made from elephant ivory. The seizure on the Halifax waterfront is Canada's biggest ever involving ivory items. Mohamed Doost, a former German jeweler, is accused of failing to obtain proper permits for transporting from Germany items derived from an endangered species.
2002-01-18 - DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania. Reuters
More than a thousand elephant tusks stolen by poachers have been recovered in the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, police said this week. Police said two Tanzanians had been arrested late last week following the seizure of 1,255 tusks in two suburban homes, but it was not clear where the tusks had originated.
2002-01-14 - Mysore, India.
The first batch of five elephants for participating in the Dasara procession, Jamboo Savari, has arrived in Mysore. The elephants led by the chief tusker, Balarama, are undergoing training with daily acclimatization march along the procession route - Palace to Bannimantap Parade Grounds. The 43-year-old Balarama had recently escaped into the forest in Nagarahole forest area after developing 'musth'.
