Saturday, April 05, 2014

From Becky Keyes

Dear Mr. Woodcock,
We are trying to find out about the whereabouts of an elephant named Sissy, who would be about 43 years old now. My husband took care of her when she came to the St Louis Six Flags as a baby. He worked there as a teen and later. He does not know for sure if she was bought by a circus or not. Any direction you could give us would be appreciated.
Sincerely,
Becky Keyes



"My friend Smokey Jones once worked at Six Flags and told me stories about that little elephant and said he liked her a lot, even showed me a newspaper clipping that included a remarkable picture from the time he placed a tiny mouse on "Sis's" head and it crawled all around her face, down her trunk to the very end then casually continued on inside.
Smokey said he panicked slightly but Sis was totally unconcerned and a second later the mouse reappeared, peeped out of the hole long enough for the cameraman to take his picture then continued on about his business.
The picture in the paper was captioned, "Who says elephants are afraid of mice?"


SIS
1970-71 Six Flags Over Missouri
1972-85 Carson & Barnes Circus

Sorry to say I have no further record.
Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 4/05/2014 07:43:00 PM

3 comments:

Paul Gutheil said...

Marlin Perkins did a similar experiment on the old "Zoo Parade" show, although I don't recall the mouse entering the trunk. Mr Perkins comment was something along the lines of "Why should an elephant be afraid of a mouse? Even if the mouse should enter the trunk the elephant with one sneeze could put the little creature into orbit."

05 April, 2014 23:36
Anonymous said...

Sissy ended up in a small zoo in Gainesville, TX where she was a solitary elephant for many years. The small zoo there is built in a flood plain, and one year Sissy survived a devastating flood by holding her trunk above water for such a long period that she suffered nerve damage and it was permananently affected. She eventually killed her keeper in Gainesville, so the zoo decided to place her out. She went to El Paso and was video taped in some questionable "training sessions" which were aired all over TV on Inside Edition and the like. Due to the flap caused by the media exposure, she was sent to the Houston Zoo to be managed in proteted contact. However, Sissy did not adapt well and her presence was a major disruption in what had been a fairly stable group. It was then agreed that she would be placed at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee with the stipulation that she would be managed in protected contact there. I haven't looked at the website to see if she is still there, but I know she was doing fairly well there several years back. Still aggressive and distrustful of new keepers although she did eventually accept Carol and Scott. After trying to nail them first, of course.

06 April, 2014 05:13
Ryan Easley said...

There were numerous different elephants named "Sissy" at the Six Flags park. The C&B animal died in the mid-1980s in Canada.

06 April, 2014 17:41

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