Jumbo, May 1985

I'm really enjoying your photos of your past zoo adventures, Andrew.

I envy your cyclotis sighting.

Jumbo...

Possibly the last ever cyclotis in the UK?

Thank-you David. It's a shame he was destroyed not too long after this photograph was taken, but from reading Lucy Pendar's book it would have been only a matter of time before he killed a keeper.

More a shame that Z.S.L. Never let him be rehomed within the U.k.An offer to rehome home him was made but declined so he was shot !! Fairly sure in the correct housing he would off been fine.

Sounds like a very grim state of affairs.

My opinion on the Lubetkin Elephant house is well known to certain 'chatters. I forget the author but the book "Elephants I'll Never Forget" details the life of one of the elephant keepers at Whipsnade. In it he states that they were promised repeatedly, by the Director at the time, a new bull facility to house Jumbo. Sadly for Jumbo it never came to fruition.

The problem in these cases is that the Zoo owning the animal(in this case ZSL) are often reluctant to do a transfer in case something later goes wrong and it all rebounds on them. So they take an easier option with euthanasia.
Very wrong IMO particularly with an unusual animal such as this.

Would the offer of a home have been from Howletts perhaps? In which case ZSL may have been even more unlikely to take it up, given the poor relations between them.

Yes and at the time Z.S.L. and Marwell were on very good terms with Howletts exchanging animals etc . Mr Knowles ( Marwell) and David Jones (Z.S.L.)Where visitors to both collections on Mr,Aspinalls weekly visit to Port Lympne.It was also moted when Z.S.L. where struggling with Money Whipsnade was poss going to come under the Howletts and Port Lympne,,umbrella..

I was just going by the book. It says, "Desperately, the Society tried to find a collection that would take him off their hands. At twenty-three, he was a fine specimen but there were no takers and, with no other option open to them, he had to be put down. It was a heartbreaking decision but necessary to prevent the very real possibility of a human fatality."

On a separate note, what's that "shed" in the background? Also when was the chimpnasium built, as it seems very flat behind Jumbo.

Now I'm not saying this wasn't the case, though HantsLad no doubt will. However, I do know from experience that what appears in books isn't always the full truth.

From the look of him in the close-up photo it does look like they had a problem on their hands.