Iringa and Toka do have past plane experience - they were flown to
Toronto from Mozambique 37 years ago. Would an elephant forget?
"Below is a biased, animal activist making things up, to fulfill her agenda, while "poking a stick" at the opposition. Amazingly this women is supposedly a "learned" scholar of letter's, yet she reverts to a child's tactics of alibiing where the cookies went. Even more incredible is that adult's are buying into her scholarly wisdom. Not because it is factual, but rather because it is what they want to hear. Very sad, actually......"
"It
would be the way we remember some gut feelings," Joyce Poole, an
elephant behaviorist and co-founder of ElephantVoices, said in a phone
interview from Norway. "They are used to going in and out of cages and
being in small confined spaces. Otherwise, getting back into a truck
could bring back some scary feelings. Obviously, they were captured and
taken from their families and had some pretty terrifying experiences,
but they've been captive for a long time. I think they'll be fine with
it."
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Making Things Up, As You Go Along!!!!!!
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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6 comments:
from Jim Stockley: Under correction, I don't think any elephants were flying out of Mocambique in the mid '70s. They were at the tail end of the Mozambican War of Independence in 74/75. We were shipping elephants out of the Kruger National Park, so was Wolfgang Delfts. I left school in the early 70s to take the first load of 30 elephants to Europe. We would take them by rail (in crates, in sealed railroad cars for veterinary reasons) to Lorenco Marques (now Maputo). From there they would go by sea, around the Cape and up to Europe. I don't think anyone flew any elephants anywhere until the Arthur Jones shipment out of Zimbabwe in 1984?
Jim,
Ah, Jim!!! G*d Damm*t!!! Geez!!!! What in the hell are you doing, mate? Dr. Joyce Poole has been working overtime for years, alibiing herself into legendary elephant matriarch status, and you have to come up with this. Jesus,mate!!! Not for nothing, but this is brutal information, and I am not sure called for. What about that Air Canada flight, that landed, undercover of darkness in 1974, due to the ongoing Mozambican War of Independence, and airlifted out 3 female African elephants and departed for Toronto Canada? Surly you heard about it? Then again, maybe not, it being a hush-hush top secret evacuation. I know I heard about...... Wait a minute. What's that Dr. Poole? Don't say, "I heard about it", instead say "they heard about it at Elephant Base Camp." Okay. They heard about it at Elephant Base Camp Jim, and I would have assumed word would have gotten around. Surly Jim, you being familiar with elephant "gut feelings" have to admit after an Africa to Canada flight out of a hot landing zone, a flight from Canada to Calif 37 years later would be a walk in the park for these girls, trauma notwithstanding.
Come on mate. Cut the Dr. a break on this. I'm sure you just forgot about the 3 elephants Air Canada airlifted out of Mocambique. Right?
Wade
I flew 25 out of Entebee, Uganda in 1974. Right smack dab in the middle of the Arab Oil Embargo. My two week trip turned into two months..
from Jim Stockley: Sorry Gary, I had forgotten about you madmen in Uganda! ;-) I should have written "I don't think anyone flew any elephants out of southern Africa until the Arthur Jones shipment out of Zimbabwe in 1984?
For Jim Stockley and others:
Hola amigo;
In 1974 I was the senior keeper/foreman responsible for the elephants.
I brought the first three Tantor, Tara and Tessa to Toronto on a POL freighter from Hamburg.
The second shipment was Toka and Tequila also on a POL ship.
The third shipment Patsy, Iringua and Juanita also on a POL ship, Juantia died last week at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
The last two shipments were accompanied by keepers from Germany.
The first shipment unloaded in Montreal and proceeded by truck to Toronto. The last two unloaded in Toronto.
All the elephants were acquired from Fred Zeehandler acting on behalf of the Ruhe organization.
Lawrence Cahill the Superintendent of Live Collections had travelled all over europe to select the animals who were at a variety of Ruhe Zoos/Safari Parks in Germany/Austria and Spain.
Record keeping in those days was not as precise as it is now. But as near as I can determine the animals all had been collected in Mozambique and Uganda.
How they got to europe from Africa is open to conjecture. Certainly truck and or rail from the bush to either ship or airplane and on to Europe were they would have travelled by truck to wherever and then to the ships to Canada.
I wish people could just keep in mind that these elephants had a choice back in Africa on what I am sure was a miserable day for all when there family was culled, they could get in a crate and travel half way around the world and live a good life being cared for by thoughtful loving people or BE SHOT. That was the choice, life in captivity with all it's flaws or death. The death too by caring people who were conducting the culls who were trying to proved for the people who lived with the elephants.
People can't seem to understand that too someone visiting a park or zoo an elephant is truly a wonderful thing some once wrote "behold God's one great masterpiece" But too the poor farmer trying to eke out a living for has family an elephant in pumpkin patch is not a wonderful thing it means starvation, unfortunately there are too many people in the world so room has to be made for all.
I think they also forget that the majority of elephants and in fact most wild animals don't die peacefully of old age. They starve to death in droughts and famine, are killed and eaten by predators. They drown, die in falls, get hit by lightning and all sorts of accidents.
Sorry didn't mean to go on a rant.
Let me know if you get this.
Adios Toby
I just found news articles of Wolfgang Delfts flying elephants out of Southern Africa in 1979. The articles state elephants have flown before but this is the first time out of SA; regardless, elephants were in the air out of SA before Arthur Jones :)
Jim and Toby,
I love hearing stories about elephants from their original imports - capture to captivity. Very cool. Thank you for sharing.
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