Elephant Bob #1 (From Eric Beheim)

Elephant%20Bob-1, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. This is the cover of Dr. Phillip T Robinson’s LIFE AT THE ZOO, one of the best books ever written on the subject of the care and medical treatment of zoo animals over the years, and how it has improved dramatically because of modern technology. One of the “zoo stories” that Dr. Robinson included in his book concerns one of the San Diego Zoo’s older elephant keepers that he was acquainted with and whom he identifies only as “Bob.” Although considered to be a little slow by some of younger keepers, Bob impressed Dr. Robinson as having more natural rapport with the elephants than anyone else in the zoo. Bob had once been a circus elephant handler and had handled Dolly, the elephant that killed a young visitor at Ringling’s Sarasota quarters in 1950. [This is event is described in Part 1 of Joe Bradbury’s very excellent account of Ringling-Barnum’s 1950 season, which appeared in the November-December 1987 issue of THE WHITE TOPS: a 5-year-old boy had apparently strayed away from his parents, crossed a rope barrier, and was stepped on when he got too close to where Dolly was chained. In spite of protests from around the country, Henry Ringling North directed that Dolly be executed.] Since Bob had handled Dolly, he was the one who walked her to the pit where she was put down. [According to Joe Bradbury, she was given cyanide poison. According to the account Bob gave to Dr. Robinson, she was shot.]