Elephant knocked over, dies at Toronto Zoo

An African elephant living at the Toronto Zoo died during the weekend after another elephant knocked her over as the herd scrambled for its hay at feeding time.

Tessa, the 40-year-old elephant who lived at the zoo since its opening in 1974, lived with four other elephants in the five-acre enclosure. On Saturday afternoon, the elephants were outside being fed when Tessa fell to the ground and couldn’t stand up again. “It’s just a really unfortunate incident where she was nudged by another elephant, and she toppled over and she couldn’t get back up,” said Shanna Young, executive director of marketing for the zoo.

After Tessa was hit, zoo staff corralled the other elephants back into their house and tried to get Tessa, who weighed 3,675 kilos, back on her feet using heavy equipment and a crane. “They brought over heavy equipment, and got her up on her knees. They fed her, and she took it and took fluids but she wouldn’t stand,” Young said.

The group of five elephants had lived together for years, Young added.

Eric Cole, supervisor of the African Savanna area at the zoo, said Tessa was the gentlest elephant in the herd and lived longer than she would have in the wild.

“Ordinarily Tessa managed to avoid the activities of the more dominant elephants but in this incident was caught off guard and tripped over,” he said in a press release.

The four remaining elephants, Thika, Toka, Iringa and Tara, had time to view Tessa’s body and mourn before staff conducted a post-mortem.

Courtesy of John Goddall

"If the Sanctuary or elephant interest groups mention bad behavior as being "post traumatic stress" induced, zoo's are all over that. Yet Toronto had a wake giving the elephants time to mourn???????? Honestly, all of a sudden I don't know what the heck is going on."