Trumpetings by Murray Hill 1-05
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It has come to my attention that many people are uneducated about elephants and how they came to be in the United States and how we had to learn basically on our own how to train, breed and help protect the species we have come so to love. This is my perspective from a time that allot of younger people don't understand. A time when Circuses meant a family fun time and just as now, not all handlers/trainers were abusive but patience and genuinely concerned about their lively hoods - - - the wildlife they took care of.
I will start with when I first started
with elephants in the early 1960's. I had heard many things about
them and after many years many of these stories were either
embellished or just the figment of the story teller's imagination
some were true. So I won't relay on heresy or second hand
information unless I want to make a comparison.
I was working with chimpanzees at this
time and was importing animals for sale. I had no idea of keeping
elephants at that time and the only reason I got involved with them
was that I imported an infant bottle baby and couldn't sell her.
At that time no one wanted a bottle infant as they claimed that the
mortality of an infant bottle baby was 99%.
During the early 1960's there was no so
called elephant experts in fact no exotic animal experts as there
was no sincere interest in these animals maybe due to lack of
finances or lack of time. The zoos had veterinarians who were
mostly volunteers and their knowledge was surface information that
was a common thing for that particular species. It was a rare thing
in most cases for them to take one species and really learn about
them.
With rare exception the circuses didn't
have any veterinarians that traveled with the show. It was up to
the trainers and handlers to learn about these animals and I know
contrary to the myths of today they were the first to recognize both
physical and mental problems and how to deal with these problems.
Long before veterinarians were able to
tell when a female elephant was in estrus I knew handlers that could
neither read or write and could tell you when that cow was ready for
breeding. My generation laughed at these people but years later
when science started to catch up with nature we found that these
illiterate people were right on the money with their diagnosis.
My local veterinarian at that time was a
farm animal specialist but had a sincere interest in my exotic
animals and tried through trial and error and being a good
veterinarian won most of the battles. Of course he made mistakes
but luckily none were deadly. We were able in most of the cases to
correct what ever it was that we may have come up with the wrong
diagnosis or remedy.
About the middle 1960's while performing
on the west coast a lady approached me and explained that she was
the veterinarian at the Portland OR zoo and would I let her take
blood samples of my elephants. She traveled over a 100 miles to get
these samples. This was the first time that I came in contact with
a scientist that was interested in the well being of the species and
trying to do something. Following her was a young veterinarian that
also had this interest in the species and was getting things
accomplished. He found a way to track the blood of the female and
find out when and how long the estrus period continued for
successful breeding. Up to this time there were babies being born
there in Portland but only by hit and miss. I believe that they
were the first to continuously breed successfully. At that time the
bull elephant was Thonglau owned by Morgan Barry. As we knew very
little if anything about breeding elephants mistakes were made. We
even got some inbreeding which today is very carefully watched so as
not to occur again. Many of his off springs are still around and
some of them are helping the survival of the species.
I am happy to say that many zoos and
some circuses got into the business of breeding to keep the species
alive. When I donated my bull, Onyx to the Dickerson Park Zoo,
Springfield, MO he turned out to be one of the prolific breeders in
the country.
Today we have the knowledge and have
successfully bred through artificial insemination, (AI).
Science has progressed to keep the
species alive with the modern technology but this isn't the end of
accomplishments. It is just in it's infancy stage of what we have
to learn and do. Why or how new diseases have cropped up we do not
know and even some of the old ones that at one time we thought we
had cured.
If we don't do something in captivity to
find cures, and progress in the betterment of their lives they will
not only become extinct in captivity but also in their native
lands. It's just a matter of time.
It is up to the zoos, circuses,
sanctuaries, parks and any other interested parties in keeping the
species from extinction to do their part.
We are privileged to have had the
opportunity the have had one of Onyx's offspring's that had a severe
behavioral problem and we were able to rehabilitate her so that she
could return to a zoo that has successfully bred her and several
months ago she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
In the future I will try to talk about
our feelings on elephant training, handling and what we and others
can do to help the species survive.
Your Opinions Count! We would like to hear from you and your suggestions will be seriously considered.
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