I'm guessing the larger African is Polepole. Could the smaller African be the cyclotis bull Jumbo that ended up at Whipsnade? Or was there another African female around that time?
I'm guessing the larger African is Polepole. Could the smaller African be the cyclotis bull Jumbo that ended up at Whipsnade? Or was there another African female around that time?
The forest elephant bull, ‘Jumbo’, was kept for a while at London Zoo before going to Whipsnade; however he was kept on the Cotton Terraces not in the Elephant and Rhino Pavilion.
The female African elephants at London Zoo at this time were ‘Toto’ and ‘Pole-Pole’.
The largest number of elephants in this exhibit would have been four.
In the earlier days of this building it housed two female African elephants and two female Asiatic elephants; in later years it housed four female Asiatic elephants.
I think that the animals here are (left to right):
Toto, arrived 1961 from Uganda, died 1980.
Lakshmi, arrived from India in 1953, left for Artis in 1979(?), where she died in 1981.
Pole-Pole, arrived 1968 from Kenya, died 1983 after refusing to go into a crate designed to move her to Whipsnade. The animal that probably launched ZooCheck, and nearly closed London Zoo.
The protocol adopted for elephant management at this time was very hands-off, which would have been fine, except for the fact that the house had been designed for trained elephants. It's a great pity that the final departure of elephants from London wasn't undertaken some 25 years earlier.
I still remember the surprise & excitement of seeing him when i walked in that house expecting to see a bison i think! If my memory serves me correctly it may have been one of the current okapi indoor areas.
The missing elephant from the picture would be Anna, who i remember was a very young elephant when i first saw her.
I still remember the surprise & excitement of seeing him when i walked in that house expecting to see a bison i think! If my memory serves me correctly it may have been one of the current okapi indoor areas.
Hello,
I saw your message in this forum about Jumbo, and I was wondering if somebody could have pictures of Jumbo when he was still alive. I discovered he died in 1988 in London ... I used to play with this elephant in Cameroon when I was young and he was a baby, in 1966 - 1967, when he still lived free in the forest. Thanks in advance if somebody knows more about his stay there.
