Tyke the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus ...
Photo: Honolulu Star (1994)
Perhaps the most (in)famous recent case of so-called elephant rebellion involved a large, 20-year-old African she-elephant called Tyke, who regularly performed with a circus, before one day deciding that enough was enough.
During a show in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 20, 1994, Tyke killed her trainer, Allen Campbell, and seriously injured a co-worker. She then bolted from the arena and rampaged through the streets of the Kakaako central business district for more than thirty minutes with a trumpety-trump, trump, trump, trump!
Fearing for the safety of the public and of damage to private property - though seemingly unconcerned about Tyke's obvious distress (not to mention the years of abuse and humiliation she'd suffered leading up to the incident) - the authorities immediately issued a shoot to kill policy.
After firing almost a hundred rounds of ammunition at the poor beast, the cops eventually stopped Tyke dead in her tracks; traumatizing many spectators to the event in the process.
The attack on her human captors, her escape, her brief moments running free (if never, alas, running wild), and, finally, her bloody execution, were all captured on video and this shocking footage is central to the excellent if harrowing documentary made by Jumping Dog Productions entitled Tyke: Elephant Outlaw (dir. Susan Lambert and Stefan Moore, 2015).
Anyone moved by the plight of Tilikum in Blackfish (2013) - and you'd have to be heartless and inhuman (in the bad sense of the term) not to be - will rightly be angered and upset by the story of Tyke as well.
Having said that, it's mistaken to think of elephants as gentle giants, or spiritual creatures; even in a natural environment they can display aggressive and destructive behaviour. Hardcore animal rights activists may like to think that man is the only violent and vindictive animal, but that's clearly not the case.
Indeed, one is tempted to suggest that even the most kindly and intelligent elephants can only ever be virtuous in a herd manner or Christian sense; they can display pity and forgiveness, for example, but because they can never forget they're likely to be prone to some form of ressentiment and thus never truly noble.
During a show in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 20, 1994, Tyke killed her trainer, Allen Campbell, and seriously injured a co-worker. She then bolted from the arena and rampaged through the streets of the Kakaako central business district for more than thirty minutes with a trumpety-trump, trump, trump, trump!
Fearing for the safety of the public and of damage to private property - though seemingly unconcerned about Tyke's obvious distress (not to mention the years of abuse and humiliation she'd suffered leading up to the incident) - the authorities immediately issued a shoot to kill policy.
After firing almost a hundred rounds of ammunition at the poor beast, the cops eventually stopped Tyke dead in her tracks; traumatizing many spectators to the event in the process.
The attack on her human captors, her escape, her brief moments running free (if never, alas, running wild), and, finally, her bloody execution, were all captured on video and this shocking footage is central to the excellent if harrowing documentary made by Jumping Dog Productions entitled Tyke: Elephant Outlaw (dir. Susan Lambert and Stefan Moore, 2015).
Anyone moved by the plight of Tilikum in Blackfish (2013) - and you'd have to be heartless and inhuman (in the bad sense of the term) not to be - will rightly be angered and upset by the story of Tyke as well.
Having said that, it's mistaken to think of elephants as gentle giants, or spiritual creatures; even in a natural environment they can display aggressive and destructive behaviour. Hardcore animal rights activists may like to think that man is the only violent and vindictive animal, but that's clearly not the case.
Indeed, one is tempted to suggest that even the most kindly and intelligent elephants can only ever be virtuous in a herd manner or Christian sense; they can display pity and forgiveness, for example, but because they can never forget they're likely to be prone to some form of ressentiment and thus never truly noble.
