does anyone no the history of the elephants at colchester zoo? if you've got any links, pics, etc.. that would be great thanks.
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My new article at ShowMe Elephants documents a history of Asian elephants at the Colchester Zoo preceding its current collection of African elephants. A new location with elephant history has been added to Elephant.se, Dreamland Safari Wild Animal Park. It also reveals one of these first elephants of Colchester as an elephant now residing at the Wroclaw Zoo, whose history prior to 1989 was unknown. If anyone has further information regarding the locations and animals questioned in the report, please leave a comment or message me in an effort to complete their records for elephant historians. >> "Safari Zoo - Moto and Toto" at ShowMe Elephants, 09/16/2011
The elephant you are referring to is I am sure Toto, who was owned by Jeffrey Hoffman of Circus Hoffman up till 1989, she was then sold to Cricket St. Thomas Wildlife Park and is now resident at Wroclaw Zoo, aged 47. Another ex British circus elephant also resided there until recently, Rhani an Asian cow in her early forties who unfortunately had to be put to sleep due to liver problems. She had been owned by Mary Chipperfield Promotions just like Opal, Topaz and Tembo, the African elephants which were sold to Colchester Zoo in the late nineties.
Sorry, the name of the African elephant was Rosa, not Topaz, she had to be put to sleep about three years due to internal problems.
I am sure the Toto you are refering to is the ex Circus Hoffman elephant, regarding the young bull, Moto, I am only speculating but Hoffman's had a young bull elephant on the show in1973, he is named in the programme as Maxi, the only bull elephant performing in a British circus, could Hoffmans have changed Moto's name to Maxi, as it sounded very similar to Toto, I do not know where this young bull elephant went after his time at Hoffman's,but he was not on the show by the late seventies.
This is probably the same Maxi that is currently the breeding bull at Zurich Zoo: he was sold by the Chipperfields in 1981 after touring with the circus and a short spell at Longleat. There seems to have been a close relationship between the Chipperfield and Hoffman circuses where elephants were concerned. I have no proof that Moto and Maxi were the same animal but it does seem to "fit". They were both said to have come from Thailand and the earliest reference that I have for Maxi is his arrival at Dudley in June 1971 which ties in well with Moto's departure from Colchester (assuming he was not at Margate for long). As if that's not complicated enough, the aforementioned Ranee - who ended up with Toto at Wroclaw - arrived at Dudley with Maxi in June 1971!
Tarzan, That is the Toto I refer to. I will look further into your speculations regarding Toto, but that sounds like a good lead. Can you share the program with which the mention is made of Maxi? I can be contacted by email as well at shomeetigers[at]yahoo.com. Thanks for the help!
Moto arrived at Colchester around 1966, but Maxi's date of birth is generally given as 1969/70. This would seem to rule out the possibility of them being the same animal, but the attached scan of the 1981 Zurich annual report cover seems (to me) to show an animal older than 11 years.
I am going to contact someone who I think was working for Hoffmans at the time when they were involved with Dreamland, hopefully he may be able to shed some light on this, I will dig out the programme soon, best wishes.
Rob, What reference do you have for Maxi at Dudley? The EEP Asian Elephant Studbook does not list Maxi at Dudley at all. His birth date is estimated 1969, first arrival to Longleat (a Chipperfield creation) about 1981 and to Zurich in September 1981. A three year estimate on birth year is not far off at all, and I agree that your photograph pictures a male older than 11. George Frei's site Upali.ch shows a picture with Mary Chipperfield and states he arrived on the show in 1971. Does anyone know of a connection between the Chipperfield family and the Dudley Zoo? Tarzan, Thanks for the help! I can't wait to see what you can find out.
I'm very interested by all of this. Why would they change the name of "Moto" to "Maxi"? It's funny to think that back when those 2 elephants left the zoo they had very poor records kept. I'm glad that they've finally (of sorts) been tracked down.
This (and most of my other Dudley information) comes from a keeper who researched the history of elephants at the zoo. Maxi was known as Maknah (Mak) at Dudley, but it's not difficult to see how this became Maxi. He left the zoo for Chipperfield's Circus in Jan 1972 and at some point during the 1970s was touring with an Irish Circus under the ownership of Ricki McCormick (aka Rikki del Oro) - presumably on loan from the Chipperfields? If we can confirm that Moto left Margate for Dudley then I would be fairly certain that Moto and Maxi are one and the same animal. During the early 1970s Dudley Zoo was owned by Don Robinson's Scotia group which ran several UK collections. There was a lot of movement of elephants in and out of the zoo: seven animals arrived between June 1971 and June 1973, but only Flossie remained long-term. Most of these elephants were sent to Dudley for training and were later sent out to circuses such as Chipperfields, Fossett's and Roberts Bros. There is a definite link with Margate Dreamland as an animal named Gay (aka Mali or Mahali) spent the 1972 and 1973 Summer seasons at Margate before returning to Dudley in the Autumn. Gay was sent to Fossett's Circus in March 1974 and is alive and well at Paignton - again, her early movements are missing from the studbook and all the online databases. There were large numbers of elephants coming into collections such as Flamingo Park, Cleethorpes and the Chipperfield-owned safari parks during the late 1960s and early 1970s and a great number of these animals are missing from the studbooks.
Thank you both for the further information and some fascinating research. Rob, I was reminded that we cannot refer to all the Chipperfield-owned entities as one unit. In the 1950s a portion of the family began their own undertaking. The Chipperfield Circus (that was first discussed on ShowMe Elephants several months ago with the sale of eight elephants to Ringling) can differ from the safari parks around the world, some leased animal acts and other shows under the same surname. This is most certainly the case with Maxi, who was under the direction of Mary Chipperfield. I am waiting for approval to access the Hoffman Circus pictures on Facebook which include the 1973 program referred to by Kevin. Today I posted a 2010 picture of Maxi at Zurich courtesy of Petra Prager's online elephant database. I will soon post additional photographs belonging to my father of the Zurich institution from the nineties which include Maxi as well.
After further investigation we have discovered that Moto was NOT the same elephant as Maxi, and also the Circus Hoffman Maxi is NOT the same elephant that currently resides at Zurich.It would have been good if they were all the same elephant, but no this was not the case.
You mention Gay/Gaye, the Paignton elephant was sent to Fossett's Circus, just to clarify do you mean Sir Robert Fossett's Circus?. If so this will for me solve the identity of the tenth elephant Sir Robert Fossett's owned from 1974 up to 1979. They had the main troupe of six that were trained by Julius Hani, Dum Dum, Sara, Emma, Bindula, Mahala and Minnie, also Tina who was later hired out to Clubb Chipperfield and later Circus Fiesta, Bobby, a young bull elephant who for a while did an act with a young African elephant and spotted horse, (Anglo, Asian, African alliance). I also recall a young Asian cow bringing the number up to ten, In 1980 there were only eight elephants on the show, I was told that the African had died, but cannot recall what happened to the eighth Asian cow, was this Gaye the Paignton elephant who died last year?
Well it's nice to know that . So I guess it's more trawling around wondering what happended to Moto (who could still be alive?), please keep us updated on the information that you find out.
