Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Indian rhino at the London Zoo/undated


I have never seen an armored rhino, this one sure seems to be a sweetheart.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think much money would be made off RINO RIDES. She sure is a beauty tho. I remember the sound of Nicodemus the Rino on Kelly Miller. Pretty scary.

Anonymous said...

This photo was taken at Whipsnade Zoo in about 1960. The keeper with the Indian Rhino is George Brahm who had been a keeper/trainer with the old Bostock and Wombwelle's Menagerie. When it closed in 1932 he went to the Oxford Zoo with an elephant called Rosie. When this zoo closed in 1938 the elephant went to Bristol as a ride animal. George went to Whipsnade, where he took over the elephant department, which included the other Bostock elephant, Dixie. I remember Dixie well, as she was the main ride elephant. George used to get her to play the mouth organ and do a few tricks, which the punters gave her pennies for, which she then promptly then put into George's pocket. She died in 1962, having trod on a nail.

Buckles said...

When the Ringling Show moved indoors Hugo Schmitt would take Targa out front and work the blow off doing elephant rides, much to the dismay of the shows management.
He would simply stretch her out and have the boys toss people people up on her back then she would arise (that in itself was an experience) walk a short distance then stretch out again.
In other words, it was a floating operation that followed the crowd and might eventually end off the lot completely.
If business was slow he would do like you mentioned, toss a quarter on the round and Tara would pick it up and hand it back to him. He would then invite others to do the same and Targa would pick it up but hand it to Hugo.
Axel told me that Tuffy Genders would come to him and say "You tell that damned Hugo to stop that ride!" and Axel would would say "You tell that damned Hugo, not me!".

Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds said - -The Indian rhino was a male named "Mohan." The photo was taken at London's country zoo, Whipsnade. The photo is from 1953 and appeared that year in a National Geo. - -a story about the Londn zoo. Mohan arrived at Whipsnade on August 7, 1947 and died there on 7 March 1961. He sired a youngster born in 1957 that went to Milwaukee zoo in 1959. This was only the second Indina rhino successful bred and born in the Western world - -Richard Reynolds

Anonymous said...

When visiting the Milwaukee zoo long ago, I met elephant keepers that also took care of a single Indian rhino. He was described to me as being pretty docile. Then I went to a zoo that had more than one. They are apparently very solitary animals and do not like each other’s company except for short times when breeding. The Indian rhinos would just as soon kill each other any other time. Even when they could just hear the other one they were in a foul mood. If they could not get to the other rhino they would try to take it out on the keepers.
When I worked for a short time in California with some rhinos we went into the pen with them everyday to feed and clean. But these were wide lipped rhinos, also known as white rhinos.
Don Bloomer

Buckles said...

Hi Don,
Good to hear from you again. I still have some Sparks, Nv. letters from you. Out of curiousity, how did you hear about thie Blog Site?
Buckles

Anonymous said...

I got the word about your BLOG from “CircusVern’s” emails. He got my email address when I met him at the CFA convention in Seattle.
The BLOG is great. Happy Holidays to you and yours.
Don Bloomer