If anyone can add to or contradict the following timeline of asian elephants which lived at Cricket St Thomas please do. I am especially interested in any accounts the the events leading up to the bull being put down, and the eventual decision to send the remaining females to other collections: The main elephants that visitors will remember were Chikky and Millie. Toto was the 'third' cow brought in to extend the herd in anticipation of a bull at the start of the 90s, and ready to move into the new enclosure. The enclosure pictured in the gallery was in a sunken pit. Visitors would pass along a path high above the yard and look down on the elephants. There was also a network of tunnels and grottos under the bank, one of which led up to a viewing area in the pit, at the same level. The elephants were separated from this viewing area by a moat, which was made of steps down into a concrete ha-ha. After they moved to the new enclosure, this yard held tapir and capybara for a while, before being redeveloped into a seal pool and seating for a show (was this ever built or were there just proposals?). The timeline for events in the elephant group at CSTWP are as follows. I have a nagging suspicion there was another female for which Millie was the replacement, but I can find no records to suggest this. March 1st 1973 - Cow Chikky arrives aged 5 May 1st 1981 - Cow Millie arrives , aged 9, after a brief stay at Woburn from Lambton Lion Park January 25th 1990 - Cow Toto arrives from Circus Hoffoman (UK) aged 30, while the new enclosure is being built. Records suggest she came to the circus only the year before. I don't know where she spent the first 29 years of her life. 1990-1991 - New elephant house and sand paddock constructed (where current spider monkey island now sits). March 2nd 1991 - Bull Sahib (Fridolin) arrives from Belfast aged 28. He was hand-reared in Circus Knie, and had gone to Leipzig in 1984, then Belfast in 1988. Photos at the time show keepers going in with him in the bull yard at Cricket St. Thomas. June 7th 1992 - Two more cows, Nika and Shiva, arrive from Stockholm zoo, aged 34 and 20 respectively. (At this point Cricket St. Thomas was holding 1.5 Asian Elephants in its new facility. There were some reports of Sahib not mixing well with the cows. Whenever I saw him he was walking round his small bull yard while the cows were in the sand paddock. Some of the cows were still walked round the grounds but I never saw this, and don't know the regularity). April 1st 1993 - Stephen Standley, who had been manager of Cricket St. Thomas and overseen the development of the elephant herd, a new lemur complex on the valley bank below the elephants, and who had involved the park in a number of endangered species breeding programmes, leaves Cricket St. Thomas to take up a post at Blackpool zoo, where he oversaw similar developments to the elephant house there, before moving to Auckland Zoo several years later. It was around this time (late 1992 onwards, that Noel Edmonds had become involved creating 'Blobbyland' at the park, and for a short time it may even have been known as 'Crinkley Bottom theme Park'). September 21st 1993 - Shiva dies less than a year after her arrival, aged 21, having stopped eating. She also was reported to have some foot problems that contributed to her death. December 23rd 1994 - Sahib is euthanased with a shotgun, generating some bad press for the park. A former keeper in Leipzig makes a statement that more could have been done to find Sahib a suitable home, and that Leipzig would have taken him back if they knew he was being killed (but was not necessarily speaking as a representative of Leipzig zoo). Noel Edmonds is linked, I don't know how justifiably, to the decision by the management at the time to kill a healthy elephant, as was allegedly overseeing development of the land immediately adjacent to the elephant house into the 'blobbyland theme park'. The fur seals had already been located (or were about to be) to a purpose-built pool on the site of the original elephant enclosure on the other side of the walled garden, and a carousel occupied the site of the former (temporary) seal show, which was directly by Sahib's yard. Press reports at the time suggested the weapon was inappropriate for its use and that the animal was therefore not put down humanely/quickly enough. Sahib died aged 31. My source was newspaper reports at the time, in particular the Daily Express. I therefore can't vouch for the accuracy of those articles, only the fact that they were published in response to the incident. November 13th, 1996 - Millie, one of the original two cows, dies aged 24, reportedly from heart failure. This leaves 0.3.....Chikky, Toto and Nika. February 22nd 1999 - Cricket St. Thomas gives up its remaining elephants, as all 3 cows are exported to Rio Safari in Elche, Spain. October 19th 2009 - Toto leaves Elche for Selwo Wildlife Park also in Spain. October 22nd 1999 - 3 Days after Toto, the other two cows Chikky and Nika leave Elche for Selwo Wildlife Park in Spain. December 1st 1999 - Nika dies at Selwo Wildlife Park aged 41, just over a month after arriving there, and less than a year after leaving Cricket St. Thomas, having been moved between institutions twice in 8 months. Of all the elephants to live at Cricket St. Thomas, Chikky (the original cow), and Toto (the third cow brought in to join Chikky and Millie in the new enclosure) are still alive. Chikky stayed at Selwo wildlife park where she is part of a small breeding group (1 other cow with a year old calf, and a breeding bull, making 2.2), she is now 41. Toto was moved to Valladolid Zoo in Spain in 2004, and then accompanied another cow, Rhanee, from there to Wroclaw Zoo in 2007 when Valladolid gave up its elephants. She lives with this cow and one other which was already at Wroclaw, and is the oldest of 0.3 cows aged 30+. She is 49. It is striking that the park underwent a change in management and lost two cows, both in their early twenties, and put down a supposedly healthy bull elephant in the space of a three-year period. I'm sure that's not the whole picture. In their defence, it was still early days for the Asian elephant breeding programme in the UK, and they made some brave decisions with several rather dysfunctional animals. Sahib had been passed around several times without any success, plus Shiva arrived having attacked keepers in the past. I'm interested as to why Toto seems to be an animal that was moved countless times, whether she bullied other cows or was difficult to manage, and as I have said I'm especially interested in the events leading up to Sahib's death and the reasoning for it. But I'd be interested to see what other people on this forum remember of the Cricket St. Thomas elephants in general.
I remember seeing the bull ‘Sahib’ several times in Leipzig in the 1980s. His father was the famous ‘Siam’ who lived in Vincennes (Paris) Zoo for some 30 years. ‘Sahib’ was a large animal but, unlike his father, he never seemed to develop impressive tusks.
The first elephant at Cricket was Twiggy who arrived in 1969. She has had a remarkable captive history: 26.04.1964 - arrived at Wellingborough Zoo 1968 - moved to Flamingo Park, Yorkshire Early 1969 - moved to Cricket St. Thomas ca. 1975 - moved to Belle Vue, Manchester Jun 1976 - moved to Glasgow Zoo 1976/77 - returned to Belle Vue 30.11.1977 - moved to Amersfoort Zoo, Holland 15.10.1990 - moved to Belgrade Zoo, Serbia (where she is still alive and well!) A couple of other snippets: Chikki came from Wassenaar Zoo in Holland. Shiva was with Circus Sariola in Finland before she moved to Skansen. Ranee, the female who moved to Wroclaw with Toto, is also an ex-UK elephant - she was at Dudley in the early 1970s and also spent time at Longleat and Twycross (1996/97) while she was owned by the Chipperfields.
So Twiggy and Chikky were together until 1975 when Twiggy left, then it was 6 years until Millie arrived as another companion for her? Thanks, I thought there was at least another elephant that had been at the park.
So this is Twiggy, the original Cricket St. Thomas elephant, still alive but kept in solitary at Belgrade Zoo: http://www.asianelephant.net/beograd/beograd.htm The database surprised me in that Luka (the bull who fathered calves at Belfast and Port Lympne, now at Terra Natura), was born at Belgrade zoo.
That's her! Luka was at Belgrade for many years and was rumoured to have killed two keepers in his time there. He moved to a small zoo at Osijek in Croatia before arriving at Woburn in 1986.
Can you tell me your source for this? As I'm trying to make a list of all elephants ever in Dierenpark Wassenaar. Thanks in advance
This is mentioned in Some Of Our Best Friends Are Animals: The Story Of A Wildlife Park (i.e. Cricket St. Thomas) by Peter Spence. It's possible that she was only there for a very short period but the book clearly states "John [Taylor, the owner] had bought the elephant from Wassenaar Zoo". There are several other references to Chikki coming from the Netherlands, but this is the only time that I have seen Wassenaar specified.
Regarding the Cricket St Thomas elephants. Twiggy the original elephant at the park is recorded as being alive and well at Belgrade Zoo. According to the book Memoirs of a coarse zookeeper George Jacobs records working with Twiggy at Cricket St Thomas in the seventies and describes her as difficult to handle and dangerous. He also recalls Twiggy being moved onto another collection where she also proved to be difficult and was later shot. Regarding Toto the ex Circus Hoffman elephant, she certainly had been at Circus Hoffman allot longer than one year, I would suggest since the early seventies. As well as Toto leaving this circus at this time, Jeffrey Hoffman also sent Lulu to BELFAST ZOO,as Lulu came from Chessington Zoo as a youngster can we assume that this is the famous Blue Peter elephant who disgraced herself in front of John NOAKES and co. A real shame that Cricket St Thomas has recently closed a zoological collection housed in a picturesque and tranquil setting a loss to the U.K. zoo scene
I remember hearing very long ago from several other old keepers when I was starting out in zoo keeping, about an extremley aggresive cow that came up from England to Scotland- where she carried on her aggresive habits and attacked her keepers very soon after arrival - quite badly I remember. The zoo, and I think it was CALDERPARK, before it was Glasgow Zoo, not Edinburgh,then decided to euthanise her, the elephant was shot but in the event students from the local vet dept at the university found out what was to happen and had climbed onto the roof of the elephant house to watch .The bullet richocheting off the skull went through the roof and hit a student- there are 2 versions- in 1 version it killed him outright! The asian elephant cow was supposedly from Cricket! Remember names and elephants were easily changed back then! With very little record keeping. Glasgow had several elephants, before the last elephant at the zoo, KIRSTY.Any elephant keeper looking at the very basic Glasgow ele accomodation would see how extremley difficult it would be with even top elephant handlers to work around a dangerous animal in that elephant house, again suggesting this story to be true!
Thank you for your answer robmv and all others for joining!!! As I'm updating my list of UK zoos that plans to keep, keep or kept elephants, my count is 47 at this moment! Will start a new tread with the complete list. Maybe you guys can see it through for corrections?
This is both interesting and confusing! To the best of my knowledge Glasgow only kept four elephants: Kirsty and Twiggy moved on elsewhere so only Freda (1954) and Sari (1967) died at Glasgow, and I'm not aware that either came from an English zoo. Twiggy was certainly an aggressive animal and of course she was once at Cricket. She was soon sent back to Belle Vue as the keepers at Glasgow couldn't handle her and had to keep her in chains most of the time. The most confusing part of this story is the fact that I have heard an identical story, except for the fact that the events took place at Dudley! I hadn't really questioned it before, but I'm now starting to think it might be an urban myth. I've been collating notes on elephants in UK and Irish collections for many years and I'm aware of at least 90 places which have kept elephants (dating all the way back to the arrival of the first elephant at the Tower of London in 1255). If you send me a PM with your email address, I'd be happy to share my notes with you.
Johnstoni, I would be intersted to know the outcome of your request, did you manage to find any new records reg the Cricket elephants?
The management @ Cricket never listened to keepers, they new better!!! A plan for a large elephant complex up the valley from the main park was poopood. Raised viewing into an elephant yard was put forward by me! But told it wouldn,t work. Toto was brought in for the Nepalese Mahout Dan Tamang to use. He wouldn't go near Chikki or Milli who used to work carrying food from the zoo kitchen to the elephant shed!!!
I just posted 2 videos of the elephants including Sahib that I found on YouTube in the gallery. Any decent pictures of their overall exhibit there?
toto ariived at circus hoffman about 1971 or 1973 so where records say she was at cirus for 1 year is wrong
