So Long Bombay and Joyce

Post by **stilltrucking** » November 24th, 2009, 5:39 am

There were several empty places along the picket line where other animals had once stood—a ghostly reminder of all the elephants who have died at Hawthorn over the years, including Hattie, Joyce, Tyke, Maude, Tess, Bombay, Dumbo, Amy, and Jackie. These vacancies caused me to reflect on how differently things could have turned out if the USDA had only moved faster. Why wasn’t Hawthorn shut down immediately in 1994, after Tyke killed her trainer and police shot her to death in Honolulu? Or in 1996, after Hattie and Joyce died of tuberculosis and the other elephants were quarantined? Or after Lota became emaciated as this highly contagious bacterial lung disease ravaged her system? Or after Debbie and Judy rampaged through a church in North Carolina? Or after a trainer was convicted of cruelty to animals in Norfolk? Or after the elephant Delhi was confiscated because she was in imminent danger from lack of veterinary care? Over the years, how could USDA inspectors stand in the same spot that I was standing in, see the same things that I was seeing—filth, neglect, abuse, emaciated elephants, sick elephants, dangerous elephants, neurotic elephants—and just leave those animals there to suffer?

http://blog.peta.org/archives/hawthorn/

Post by **stilltrucking** » November 25th, 2009, 1:05 pm

Bombay, the elephant who loved me. The matriarch.
Joyce, the elephant who wanted to kill me. Bug eyed with fear.

Post by **SadLuckDame** » November 25th, 2009, 2:46 pm

An elephant would make an excellent companion.

Post by **stilltrucking** » November 25th, 2009, 4:41 pm

There is a saying
Don't make friends with a mahout
Unless you have a big back yard.

Post by **SadLuckDame** » November 25th, 2009, 4:49 pm

Or big imagination with nearly no boundaries?
Gonna think more on this,
I likes being your friend.

Post by **stilltrucking** » November 25th, 2009, 7:24 pm

So sad to hear of her death.

She would reach out with her trunk, wrap it around my waist, pull me to her and then study me with a beautiful brown eye. Some times she would take my hand and put it in her mouth.

I got that quote wrong it is from Be Here Now

"WARNING: if you don't have room in your livingroom for an elephant—don't make friends with the elephant trainer..."—Sufi mystic
http://everything2.com/title/Be+Here+Now

Male elephants are solitary, I can relate to that.

Post by **SadLuckDame** » November 27th, 2009, 2:06 am

I get teary eyed watching Animal Planet or discovery channel when it shows an elephant family gathering around the broken body of one of their herd.

Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

So Long Bombay and Joyce

So Long Bombay and Joyce

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