African Elephant

Is it true that there's an african elephant going round with a circus in N.Z.?

Anyone seen it?

 

no ara u are right, there is a female african elephant in a new zealndf travelling circus, she is named jumbo and in late 20's

do a forum search on her, she has been discussed numerous times on this site

 

and is or was for sale.

 

now be nice.

i feel very sorry for this animal. the likelihood that she will ever see another of her species is very slim. and to top it off she is still relatively young. obviously we have all hoped that she ends up at dubbo, where the only other african elephants are , but i see that as very unlikely.

her best bet is that she moves to auckland. they have no elephant-breeding asipirations it seems and being a circus animal she is obviously easily handled, in line with aucklands animals. asian elephants might not be quite the same as her own species, but they will provide better compantionship than only humans nonetheless. in addition there is a bit of an age gap between aucklands two elephants. so potentially the younger cow might live quite a while longer than the older one. jumbo is of comparable age to kashin so their could be at least some form of a resolution there...

 

When I lived in NZ for a while in the early 90's there was a travelling circus with an Asian elephant cow. I saw it more than once in different places, fairly closeup from the road and it was definately an Asian. I wonder if that one is still 'on the road'?

 

i'm pretty sure i read that the african cow "was the only circus elephant in NZ" indeed, if true she is also the only african elephant and one of just 3 elephants in the entire country..

however its very hard keeping track of circus elephants - many of us here on the forum have tried to work out the how many exist in australia without much success (we have two definates and thats about it...)

no doubt like the rest of you i am anti-animals, patricuarly exotics, in circus'. even if you set aside the generally appaling track record with care, its bloody dangerous. how zoos in this day and age in a country like australia continue to be issued permits to keep big cats, monkeys and elephants i just don't know...

 

If the animal welfare groups were fair dinkum about helping animals and not just a bunch of sanctimonious critics, they would allocate some of their funds towards buying this little elephant and send her to either Auckland or Dubbo.

 

I'm pretty sure Circuses in UK have nowadays phased out elephants(and all wild animals) totally. Some of the elephants transferred to Safari Parks, essentially those run by the circus family Chipperfield. Chipperfields got a bad name some years ago over the mistreatment of elephants after having been privately filmed beating an elephant( an African bull) and a chimpanzee at a circus' winter quarters. This became famous as the 'Chipperfield Cruelty Case'. The chimp was rehomed to a chimpanze rescue centre while the elephant(Tembo) is now a breeding male at Colchester Zoo(happier times for both) Even Longleat Safari park no longer keeps elephants now- it used to be run by the Chipperfields, not sure if that's still the case.

But there's a bizarre case of a single Asian elephant(female) still living in an Indian Monastery in South Wales. A good zoo should really take her to join a herd but it seems the monks can't legally be forced to part with her .

 

Jumbo

I am curious as to how many people on this forum would be willing to put their name to a petition type thing to request the federal government make an exception on Jumbo to bring her to Australia to live out her retirement, either with the Africans at dubbo, by herself on a larger property or with retired Asians. Please let me know what you think. I believe that putting her in with the Africans at dubbo might actually be a bit cruel. they are considerably older and after giving her a taste of company they will pass on leaving her devastated. She has had very little elephant contact and from what I have seen of her she considers humans to be her herd. If there was anywhere in Australia that was much bigger and much better than the circus who would be willing to put their names to getting her over here.

 

what is there a movement proposed for her that the govt are stopping, or is it a petition for the owner to sell?

 

neither... nobody has applied for an import permit and the owner decided to sell her in i think november last year. I know other international circuses have expressed an interest. no Aust Zoos want to pay to have her brought over her and if there was an import application made it would most likely be refused due to her being a solitary elephant. But the zoos might consider taking her if she is donated....

 

the closest place to jumbo with african elephants, as we all know is dubbo. its also a good zoo, with lots of space. logic dictates that would be the be the ideal.

another equally ideal scenario, though it may (or may not) be easier, is for her to end up at another african elephant-keeping zoo of equal standard overseas.

if she can't be offered that then you would have to settle for asians as company. this is not usually something i'm too fond of, but plenty of zoos have examples of mixed-species elephant bonding. surely its better than being alone.

in that case i would like auckland to take her. they obviously are never going to breed their asians and i'm sure their resident elephants wouldn't mind the company.

but really, what would be the benifit of bringing this animal to australia if she was not to have company? she may as well remain in NZ as far as i'm concered.

 

Surely it is better for her to be able to retire comfortably at a young age rather than spend the rest of her 50 odd yeasr travelling New Zealand. As far as I know only other circuses have expressed interest, she only knows human contact so surely this will be enough atleast for a while until three asians can be obtained.

 

jarkari, i cannot see the sens in your suggestion mate. you propose bringing her to australia, but not introducing her to the only african elephants in the australasian region at dubbo and instead place her n retirement....where? if anyone was willing to bng this animal, which is no going to happen anyway, over here to retire than surely the kindes thing to do would be to give her some company. any why pu t her with asian elephants. that would just jeapordise that whole program.
yes, it would be kind to see her end up at dubbo-where the 15 year or so age gap between Jumbo and the two others would hardly matter. at some point there will be one african elephant left in Australia-the humane thing would be for them to at least live together

 

as you know jarkari has been talking of purchasing asian elephants from autrslian circus'. i believe his plan is to purchase her and place her with these non-breeding asians - thus it wouldn't compromise the program. however, i agree that it is just a short-term solution. i can't see many of the asian circus elephants living much more than about 5 years (gigi and arna on the otherhand have a bit longer). on the other hand this elephant 'jumbo' should have maybe another 25 years left.

i know zoos have no obligation to "rescue" circus animals, nor should they have to pay exhorbitant amounts for them. but its a shame that the liklihood of this animal meeting any other african elephants anytime soon is so slim. really, the best option for her is to go to dubbo. who knows, maybe by the time her companions die, monarto will have some for themselves?

otherwise, we can hope that an overseas zoo might show interest in a (possible) breeding age african cow, but thats unlikely. no doubt its quite costly to move her and the US and Europe seem to have no shortage of african elephants....

 

if it were an asian elephant perhaps EEP or US SSP coordinators would be intersted, but African elephants are stable in both regions which would effectively cancel out overseas zoo interest.the only solution i can see to rehouse Jumbo would be to bring her to Dubbo. but as Pat pointed out, the zoos have no obligation to consider this other than a humane or ethical consideration.
on another note, Stardust Circus is coming to my home town with two asian elephants shortly

 

stardust - that's gigi and arna.

you should go check it out (and that doesn't mean you have to pay for the show). i would be interested to hear what a person with good animal ethics who actualy knows about animals has to say about the animal welfare there.

 

Hey guys, I fully understand where you are coming from. Elephants have a very definitive family bond. that relationship is developed over years with whatever family that elephant has. Jumbo has been with ratcliffe so long humans are her family. I am not saying I think this is right but it is the truth. Now any introduction to othre elephants could, not necessarily but could take months and may not be a success. From what I have seen of Jumbo she craves the company of her keeper and other humans. however much i disagree with circuses I personally think it could be considered more cruel to remove her from her owner. Having said that I haven't seen how she is treated when the public are not around. As for bringing her here, other than $350,000 to hire a Russian Cargo Plane. It would be too much of a health risk now to place her with any Asians. For this poor girl it seems the rest of her life will be spent in a circus unless a New Zealander decides to retire her there. I can't see her being let out of the country any time soon unless Dubbo wants her.