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Saddened to learn of the Colonel's death, here are a few snap shots taken in 1990 when I did some training for the Vargas Show. He was a real sweetheart to work with. Nothing like when I first saw him forty years ago in 1972 when Cliff Vargas sent me out to Gene Holter's place to check out two former LA Zoo elephants, an Asian named "Dillinger" and an African "Capone". Nuff Ced. With names like that I advised him to pass plus the fact that both were young adults with ivory and would be a handfull to train. Ignoring my warnings, the next year he bought the Asian male, hired Wally Ross and the rest is History. |
Saturday, May 05, 2012
1990 "Colonel Joe" #1 (From Buckles)
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9 comments:
Buckles,
Understandable why you would pass on a Dillinger and Capone. On an opposite note, I have passed on a few "kid gentle, can be handled by anyone, better then a dog, I just don't have room for them in the act" tigers. As a rule you can find or make room for something that good. :) What year was Col. Joe castrated/gelded? I recall it being quite "ground breaking" at the time.
Wade Burck
Addendum to Oh Great One,
Is she eating that hose while you are picture taking, or just having a drink. :)
Wade Burck
Wade, don't you recall John Herriott's critique on the Vargas Show's lack of a water wagon sometimes requiring 1,000 feet of garden hose run out to some unsuspecting neighbor's house.
Rex even had a piece of pipe added to the end so the elephants wouldn't chew it up.
I recall JY mentioning that the
procedure to castrate an elephant
was quite dangerous as the internal
placement of the testes made access
a very serious operation that was
very seldom done with success
Oh Great One,
Yes I do recall Herriott's critique. I didn't know if that was true, or he had just now wanted to miss anything in his scorched earth jackpot. :) So she was eating the hose. Was there enough left to fill the garbage tubs? Looks like James wanted to say something, but feared the wrath of God for interrupting the press conference. :)
Wade Burck
Chic,
Among other things which is what made Col. Joe's castration so ground breaking at the time. Dr. Murray Fowler of the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine was the chief surgeon and the only person who had castrated a male elephant up until then, and had it survive. Dr. Fowler had created a new instrument for the task—a three-and-a-half-foot-long écraseur that could remove testicles from deep in the belly of a full-grown elephant.
Other's on the surgical team included Dr. Jim Peddle, second surgeon and Dr. Bob Kind the third surgeon. Dr. Robert Miller, who was the vet at Thousand Oak's years ago, and later become famous for documenting foal imprinting was the anesthetist. He used a combination of a combination of xylazine and etorphine for the knock down. It was estimated the procedure should take a half hour but complications prolonged it to 3 hours. Amazingly, within minutes of being administered an etorphine antagonist, Joe rolled onto his sternum, arise, and walked over to a pile of hay and started to eat.
Dr. Fowler had gone in through a flank incision, and the scar is still visible today. In my book, right up there with walking on the moon for an achievement.
Wade Burck
I think that is Booper sucking on the hose. She had an affinity for that at Scott's. Can you confirm, Buckles?
Hard to tell from this angle but the elephants in that act were "Joe", "Hattie", "Sue" and "Brat".
Thank you sir. Do you know what became of Capone? Any chance this is the animal Ed Drake had doing a leg carry with a chimp in 1977?
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