Targa and her mother Birka with breeder Roman Schmidtt

Roman Schmitt was born 1952 in U.S.A, as son to the world famous german elephant trainer Hugo Schmidtt who worked as chief elephant trainer at Ringling Bros. Barnum & Baileys Circus. " The elephant baby was named after a well known elephant his father and later Axel Gautier had. I named my shoulder carry tiger after the original Targa."

After he left Ringling Bros, Roman trained a group of elephants in Orlando until he had an accident in 1983. Being attacked by an elephant, and tusked, he got life threatening wounds, but survived and worked for "Busch-Garden" in Tampa, Florida, where he established one of the worlds most successful breeding stations of Asian elephants.

Roman Schmitt died in may 2001, 49 years old

"A lot of the chest thumping mid 1980's-1990's Ringling Veterinarians and staff did over elephant births was because of the program that Roman started and was very successful with."