Saturday, May 08, 2010

Ringling-Barnum 1941 #3


Scan12957, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

"Puqua" and her anchor "Barnum Queen".
I notice that they have driven a stake to keep them
in the general vicinity while the menagerie was
going up.
Must have been pretty frantic with elephants working
on the lot as well as at the crossing.
The show carried 47 that season.

Unfortunately the African was among the elephants
lost in the Atlanta poisoning that Fall.

Posted by Buckles at 5/08/2010 07:21:00 AM

2 comments:

Richard Reynolds said...

If this is Raleigh, then the date is October 29, 1941. Puqua had only six days to live. She died in Atlanta on November 5th.

I was at the show the next day (Nov.6th) and things were a mess. Five elephants, including Puqua, had died the day before (5th) and two more died early on the 6th before I got to the matinee.

The elephant picket line in the menagerie was cordoned off as vets administered antidotes trying to combat the poison. I recall a water wagon parked in the public walkway in front of the picket line.

Near the connection to the big top, a keeper was standing with an elephant who was slowly swaying back and forth. She was close to the rope that blocked off the public walk at that end of the picket line. She and the keeper were close enough that we could talk to him. My Dad inquired. The keeper said she went back the separate B&B show. He added that she was very sick, and they were trying to keep her on her feet. This may have been Barnum Lizzie who died the next morning.

In all 10 elephants died in Atlanta and another on November 13at Charleston, SC. - - 11 dead elephants in all. The herd was thus reduced from 47 to 36.

The necropsy on Puqua showed that the poison was arsenic. From all that appears, they ingested it on the lot in Charlotte, NC on the Nov. 2 and 3. A chemical plant had once stood on the lot or right next to it. Aresnic seems to have been dumped on the ground many years earlier. It was in the soil. The elephants must have ingested it by pulling up grass while they grazed. This was a case of dumping hazardous materials - - a crime now but not back then.

What has always puzzled me is why Puqua got poisoned when neither her African buddy, Sudan, nor their anchor, Barnum Queen, ingested it. As far as I know, when out on the lot, those three were chained together. [That does not seem to have been the case in this photo, however, as Sudan is not shown.]

Just bad luck for Puqua, I guess.
What a shame. Puqua was a really beautiful example of the forest elephant (cyclotis).

08 May, 2010 16:19
Buckles said...

Richard, I may have misspoken.
I purchased these pictures in Raleigh in 1995.
However I did see the Ringling Show in 1941 at age 6.
I recall the midway, side show performance, horse fair and menagerie and that's about it.
I must have slept thru the big show since my recollection is nil.

08 May, 2010 17:17

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