Tuesday, November 18, 2008

"Kenya" #9


Scan10969, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

"Kenya" was eventually donated to the Louisville Zoo where I saw her saw her several times and where she was highly regarded

Posted by Buckles at 11/18/2008 05:51:00 AM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buckles, what were the reasons she was donated to Louisville? She died of salmonellosis about 1982 shortly before I began working there. By all accounts she was an outstanding elephant and when I began working there we were still disinfecting ourselves and everything we could to protect all the other animals in our care. I knew she had a circus past but never knew much else.

18 November, 2008 13:54
Buckles said...

I've heard conflicting stories but the bottom line was, she wound up at Mac MacDonald's place in San Antonio and a decision was made by Mr. Stern to find a home for her.
Louisville was selected because it was one of the Polack Show's best Shrine dates and "Kenya" was actually presented to the zoo by the Shrine Temple as a political gesture.
Smokey Jones did elephant rides there from time to time and told me that he was there when "Kenya" died. The door to her indoor facility was too narrow to remove the carcass and the only alternative was to take her out piece by piece by means of a chain saw.
This thought was so appalling to the people who handled her that Smokey volunteered to do the job.

18 November, 2008 14:24
Wade G. Burck said...

Buckles,
I can sure appreciate Smokey's dilemma. More then once I have had a team of USDA veterinarians walk away after a quick "fact finding" autopsy, only to be left with trying to move the carcass to a hole a hundred yards away. Keeping the stomach and intestines inside the open carcass is no easy matter, and takes real dedicated staff to get it all there in one piece.
Wade

18 November, 2008 17:34
Anonymous said...

Chimp trainer Buddy Watkins was at the Louisville Zoo when Kenya was donated. He told me Mac delivered her and suggested Buddy could work her. Buddy decided to pass on the idea.

18 November, 2008 18:41
Anonymous said...

Buddy's son Jody worked in the elephant barn when Kenya died and was there for several years after. In about 1987 or so a very large african named "Mary" died inside of the indoor exhibit. I fed her some hay as I passed through the area and when I returned ten minutes later she was stone dead. There was a large gouge in the concrete floor where her tusks scraped the ground as she fell. Not having any clue as to why she died so suddenly without any symptoms the director called the coroner to come and perform an autopsy before we did anything else. The staff began to immediately place large sheets of brown paper over the very large windows of the exhibit. Once the coroner decided she had died from something other than infectious disease eight or 10 of us began to dispose of the body. The hallway to the outside was about 7 feet wide and we had a small 4 wheel drive Kubota tractor that we would use out in the yard to move dirt around that would just fit through the middle. We used large butcher knives, saws and a whole lot of muscle to cut "Mary" in to 4 very large pieces. It took every man and that little tractor pulling on two large ropes to drag each carved off piece out of the building as it was removed. Outside of the building we used a very large backhoe and chains to load each part into a large manure truck which hauled it to an empty exhibit for burial. Mary's head was so large and so heavy that the backhoe could barely keep it's rear wheels on the ground when lifting it into the truck. It took us over 8 hours to dismantle the body and you could imagine how grizzly the scene looked. Smoky spent many summers there as a free lance trainer and as a ride operator. He was contracted to rough break and train two of our elephants, one named "Jana" in 1982and one named "Mikki" in about 1987or so. He also rough broke those of us who had the pleasure of assisting in these two events. He trained us much as he did an elephant using similar commands and tone. If you did not tie a proper knot he would holler "NO!!" and grab your arms from behind and move them for you into the right shape and structure. If you did good he would say "Good Boy!!" Many times I thought he would give me a monkey biscuit which we used for "dukes" to treat the elephant when it did good. But he could tell us from the elephant in that respect. I learned many things from him in those summers and wished I could have learned even more. He was one of the smartest and most adept men I ever met. He was usually very tight lipped with his knowledge but if you watched what he did you would see his real genius. If circumstances would have been different in his life I am sure he would have been an important general, ceo or other bigwig. He spoke very highly of his many friends and loved his days in the circus. But if he did not like you you would know it too.

19 November, 2008 11:56
Anonymous said...

Not to take away from this story of Kenya and Mary, and the horrible way they had to be dealt with in death...which breaks my townie heart of course...BUT, speaking of Smokey...Buckles always used the "Smokey Jones" treatment system to warn and scare our kids when they were young and to make them behave...yeah, Shannon, Dalilah and Shane..with the words like...Do the Smokey Jones Act. Sit and shut up, "Dummy up" and so on. LOL Shane still refers to the "Smokey Jones way of training and teaching kids" HAHA...
I guess you had to be there. But, we always got a kick out of it. Smokey was a hoot with that stuff. Karen Glenn

19 November, 2008 13:14

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