Why Did Tyke the Elephant Have to Die?
the following is an educational documentary some of the archival news footage may be difficult to watch what went wrong yesterday at the circus that happy show turned out to be a nightmare circus elephant rampage this gentle giant turns into a cold-blooded killer they didn't like doing it but the elephant would not go down people watched in horror as the events unfolded I remember staying up late and watching the news and so scared by something that had happened right on my Island that was pretty scary huh yeah [Music] yeah [Music] it was the summer of 1994 in Honolulu Hawaii and I was about to turn 10 years old we had a bad hurricane in 1992 but other than that the early 90s in Hawaii was a pretty peaceful Affair that is until the circus came to town foreign [Music] ER I grew up coming to Cat shows here concerts traveling shows I think I went to cats here when I was young am I correct mom in remembering that the cats crawled out into the audience God I think I would have remembered I remember not liking that okay what I'm trying to say is that the Blaisdell was for recreation and fun on August 20th 1994 that meant a family day at the circus the show began like any other at Circus International Honolulu the stands were full parents children aunties uncles delighted to be spending a Saturday afternoon enjoying clowns and tightrope hacks the crowd knew it was almost time for The Elephant Show and could see glimpses of the five elephants waiting to enter the center ring but something was wrong a man burst into the ring an animal groomer named Dallas Beckwith and he was followed in Hot Pursuit by an African bush elephant wearing a red hat this was tyke tyke knocked Beckwith down throwing and kicking his body at first some of the crowd thought this might be the intended circus choreography we thought it was part of the show a crowd member would later say there's no way that could be a human you can hear in the footage as everyone begins to process that what they were witnessing was the start of a brutal attack this elephant came from behind and he started going crazy it looked like he had a big Ragdoll and we wasn't sure if that was part of the act or something at some point Alan Campbell Tykes trainer seen here wearing blue intervened and threw his arms at tyke in an attempt to stop her attack but she could not be thwarted in fact Campbell's presence seemed to add fuel to her Rampage Campbell was no match for tyke she charged him and crushed him we are warned and brightly so not to anthropomorphize animals but for most of the people at the Blaisdell that day there was no mistaking that this particular elephant was angry the two men's injured broken bodies were being kicked around like ragdolls by tyke the elephant and her 9 000 pounds Witnesses said it happened so fast the day switching from happy to horrific an announcement was made ladies and Gentlemen please remain seated please remain seated insisting everything was under control but the audience was now hysterical with screams filling the building some of the audience remained during the attack sitting paralyzed in the stands While others began tumbling out of their seats and trying to escape the arena perhaps taking cues from the fleeing masses tyke herself crashed through the railings of the circus ring and found an exit big enough for her as the audience ran they found themselves knocked over by the determined elephant some turned their heads to realize they were running alongside her [Music] I'm trying to imagine the absolute fear and Terror you would feel especially if you were a child in this situation because you have this massive elephant and yeah it's wearing a ridiculous little hat but it's tons it's massive it's going to run you over it's so much bigger than you and the uncanny valley of those two things together would be such a profoundly destabilizing experience I think you get the sense that tyke realized in this moment that she had messed up and she was going to be severely severely punished for it and this was the first time that she had had real freedom in over 20 years and she took advantage of it she ran we obviously can't know what was going on in tyke's mind that day but those who know elephant behavior and those who knew tyke before that day in 1994 have suggested this aggression was the culmination of Decades of fear frustration and abuse that led her to make a bid for Freedom at whatever the cost tank was captured in Mozambique in 1973 as just a baby we're not sure how young she was when she was taken from her mother but it was most certainly too soon elephants especially female elephants usually stay with the herd they're born into for the rest of their lives they're dependent on their mothers for about two years and then stay in the care of their mothers for approximately 16 years much like humans but tyke did not have this luxury ripped from her mother's side she was shipped to Illinois just outside Chicago where she became the property of the Hawthorne Corporation owned by John cunio Jr Hawthorne was a Contracting firm that leased animals essentially renting them out all over America to Parks zoos circuses any company that dealt in exotic performance animals to author of fear of the Animal Planet Jason reibel during the mid 90s Hawthorne had 19 elephants one lion and 84 Tigers each available for lease on a weekly monthly or yearly basis it was a good deal for all involved cunio made money by leasing the animals and circuses and zoos didn't have to worry about training the animals or housing them when they weren't performing well a good deal for everyone except the animals beyond the whole ripped from their family group thing Hawthorne Corporation cunio and most of his trainers had a history of abusing their animals at Hawthorne tyke went from having Wide Open Spaces to days of being chained for 22 hours straight the elephants were kept standing on cement floors in dreary barns with minimal hay at their feet they had almost no Health Care were fed low quality food and had to live in their own filth footage shows elephants standing and rocking in frustration So Not only was tyke living in these conditions it was also at Hawthorne Corp the tyke began her Performance training learning such vital skills as thrown a little ball climbing on a box ringing bells and writing a tricycle abusive training was the norm with Hawthorne elephants which meant the use of the ankis or bull hook trainers at Hawthorne were advised to use the hook as a way to control elephants like tyke elephants would be beaten stabbed and poked using the bull hook it wasn't unusual for them to have Bloody wounds that weren't properly attended to fear and pain were methods of training tyke was far from the first performing elephant to rebel against the cruelty of the bull hook there are hundreds of incidents of Performing elephants snapping and attacking their handlers elephants who were labeled seasoned performers from all accounts it seems like tyke was this kind of elephant one who would never fully submit many people advised her circus International trainer Alan Campbell not to use her in the circus the documentary tyke elephant Outlaw focuses on the lives of Tykes previous trainers who had worked with her I told him he should leave tyke behind that's the only thing I could really tell you is she shouldn't be doing this trainer Brian McMillan worked with her for three months and said tyke had a bad attitude she was quote dangerous and would run away from trainers but her trainer Alan Campbell did not listen returning to August 20th 1994. tyke was now barreling down the halls of the Blaisdell Center and into the parking lot she was now loose in the streets of downtown Honolulu at one point tyke was caught in a vacant lot in kakaako near the Blaisdell moving parked cars around like they were toys a publicist for the circus Steve hirano attempted to close the gates to the lot trapping tyke in but tyke was not having it she busted down the gates and started to trample her on the police chose to open fire on her to stop the attack and hopefully slow her down tyke left hirano alone but the bullets did not stop her she continued to run back inside the Blaisdell Center ambulances rushed to the aid of injured audience members and of course groomer William Dallas Beckwith and trainer Alan Campbell Beckwith who had only been working for Hawthorne for a month was remarkably hospitalized in fair condition suffering only broken ribs a broken nose cuts and bruises trainer Alan Campbell was not so lucky tyke had crushed him to death I watched hours of coverage of this event on local Hawaii news that night and the nights that would fall off other than the O.J Simpson car chase which happened two months earlier this is the first time in my life I remember being a news consumer watching something awful unfold nearly in real time after Ellen Campbell the man in the sparkling blue suit died the news hailed him as a hero a narrative I very much believed I cried for this man for what a hero he was for giving his own life for another the trainer who was killed in yesterday's elephant attack will be remembered as a hero a man who sacrificed his own life for a co-worker and that makes his family proud I remember journaling about passionate 10 year old journaling as an adult I've come to realize that the narrative around Alan Campbell's death is much more complicated Campbell had a history of animal abuse just four years before tyke attacked him in Honolulu he had been fired by the Denver Zoo after complaints against him for abusing elephants Campbell had worked with tyke on and off for most of her life since tyke was considered a difficult elephant Campbell took an active approach in her discipline at a circus in the mid 70s and remember tyke was born in 1973 so she was still a baby elephant Witnesses say he beat her so badly that tyke was quote screaming and bending down to avoid being hit the mere sight of Alan Campbell made her cower if you've ever seen the documentary Blackfish which is one of my favorite movies of all time it's just beautifully done you know that animals forced to perform in brutal captivity especially smart self-aware animals are extremely capable of learning and remembering both cruelty and compassion after a lifetime of captivity they will likely have more than one incident of rebellion tyke had three previous incidents as many warned Alan Campbell she should have been nowhere near performing in large audiences April 21st 1993. tyke was performing for the Great American circus in Altoona Pennsylvania something seemed to frighten her and she ran away from The Ring rammed through an entryway and made her way up to the balcony of the performance space refusing to come down July 23 1993 the North Dakota State Fair in Minot tyke escaped from Tyrone Taylor her trainer at the time and went after Mike Pursley a groom she crushed three of his ribs before Taylor was able to stop her she escaped onto the Midway and evaded capture for 25 minutes tyke was only captured when she decided to stop running and allowed herself to be caught August 4th 1994.
just 16 days before her final Escape tyke was in laieie on Oahu now with circus International and trainer Alan Campbell tyke knocked over a metal barrier and pinned a family against the bleachers causing injuries after these three quite serious incidents she was still allowed to perform by the time tyke got to the Blaisdell Center on August 20th she was an angry frustrated Time Bomb circus Representatives say tyke had no past history of violence but this animal Handler indicated otherwise they cannot hardly controller she did it already before when they came down here now that time bomb had all two predictably gone off and was running loose in the streets of Honolulu we always joked about how we need patreons and she can't count on YouTube but I don't think I understood how bad things could get with YouTube restricting our content the last few months have been demoralizing in ways I couldn't have anticipated after 12 years of Hosting my videos here I am shocked at how much the rejection and misunderstanding of my work hurts and then I just end up embarrassed that I even allow it to hurt so much that Daddy Big Tech doesn't love me [Music] cycle but the fact that people continue to fund us and say take your time we believe what you do is important don't give up I feel like George Bailey at the end of It's a Wonderful Life so thank you that's right that's right in this final run tyke would have seen a myriad of reactions from the human surrounder she was stalked by circus workers and law enforcements trying to Corral her shouts arms waving gunfire but she would also have seen the local people shocked to witness her in the streets if you didn't know the circus was in town hell even if you did know there would be no context for this tremendous creature barreling down the middle of the street did tyke see her own Panic reflected in their eyes [Music] tyke had been running for 30 minutes when she turned down this side street ilanivai authorities had already opened fire on her so she arrived here bleeding and confused at last cornered by police Tykes failing body was riddled with bullets she was ultimately shot something like 87 times it seemed impossible to law enforcement that she would not go down a gathering crowd watched in horror as she finally fell collapsed against a parked car on ilanivaya Street but she was not dead yet tight lay there bleeding in pain and Afraid arguably the way she had spent most of her life in a world before social media people watched tyke's final moments from the car park above the aerial view affording them a greater perspective of the sheer force being used against this creature staff were called in from the Honolulu Zoo to administer a lethal injection but still tyke would not die the police shot her three more times and finally tyke fell silent fear confusion and sorrow permeated the scene people from all over Honolulu had gathered down alanifi drawn by the commotion they stood with shell-shocked expressions of horror hands over mouths eyes wide this was all caught on film by local news everyone living in Hawaii in 1994 remembers just how violent and traumatic tyke's death was so father when I told you that I was going to do this video what is the first thing you said oh I know some guys that were shot like the elephant they were policemen and they were they you know didn't like doing it but they that was their job so what else did they say about what it was like the elephant would not go down and I you know just kept running so I don't know it's it wasn't it was not a happy time for elephant it's very Hawaii that I would just casually mention that to my dad and he'd go yeah I know that guy yeah well there was a lot of guys that shot at tyke the elephant it was a bunch of policemen who shot it tight the elephant and their feeling was it had to be done but they didn't like it I guess tank was mad because well I got mad too if I was shot 80 times you know I say okay yeah Fair after tyke's very public death groups like animal rights Hawaii and their supporters returned to the site to erect a temporary headstone and lay flowers where tight dyed they spoke out against the abuse tyke endured and announced that they were filing a lawsuit in hopes of quote banning all animal acts from the circus in the days that followed All Eyes turned toward John cunnio Junior owner of Hawthorne Corp for answers how did this happen why did this happen most importantly are elephant attacks like this common type world around and uh swung at him and Allen came to try and take type off of him who now assured the public this was unusual isolated incident he also wasted no time in throwing injured groomer Dallas Beckwith right under the bus what led the elephant to go berserk the elephant's owner says a novice Apprentice groom stepped behind tyke before she was to go on stage a move elephant strongly disliked if an elephant will Rampage from someone simply quote stepping behind them maybe that elephant should not be performing it wasn't hard for the public to figure out that cunio was covering up not only Hawthorne corpse history of abuse and violence but an entire Industries people began to speak up more aggressively against kunio and those who worked with him Tykes death and the powerful footage of it activated people all over the country to boycott and protest circuses and animal acts and inspired the creation of places like Hohenwald elephant sanctuary in Tennessee sanctuaries For Elephants retired from zoos and circuses tyke's death also Drew attention to the fact that in spite of kunio's insistence that elephants were docile creatures Who Loved performing for humans performing elephants have a long history of resisting performance and being killed in horrific ways literal public spectacles of a horror outweighing any Joy a family might derive from attending a circus there was Topsy way back in 1903 sentenced to hanging at Coney Island Topsy killed several of her abusive handlers and would have been hanged had the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals not insisted she be killed in a more quote humane way so famously she was electrocuted by none other than Thomas Edison before a gathered crowd of Spectators Edison filmed Topsy's death naming it electrocuting the elephant like it was some Twisted performance art piece there was Mary in 1916 in Tennessee Mary threw her trainer through a shack and crushed his head after he beat her for eating a watermelon against his wishes an act of defiance that embarrassed him Mary was hanged also in front of a crowd as a spectacle there was black diamond in 1929 in Texas a notoriously dangerous elephant who after years of abuse in the circus lived exclusively in Chains with a bar preventing him from raising his trunk one day while in a parade in Corsicana Texas yes they still kept him performing he spied his former trainer in the crowd Black Diamond broke his chains and chased down the trainer grabbing him with his trunk and throwing him the trainer got away with a broken arm but his companion was killed a few days later after allegedly refusing to eat a crate of oranges laced with cyanide Black Diamond was executed by firing squad it took 155 bullets to bring him down these are just three out of countless elephants that were killed for being well wild animals animals that for financial gain were taken from their herds and their wide-ranging lives in nature and abused while wearing sparkly little hats as for John cunio you are not going to be surprised to discover that this was not his first nor last conflict with the government and animal rights organizations two years after tyke's Escape cunio was finally fined a whopping 12 500 that's 24 700 in today's money the cost of a 2021 used Kia Sorrento oh boy they really got cunio good there this would prove to be just the beginning of kunio's malfeasance in 1998 after being accused of eight violations of the animal welfare act the USDA fined kunio sixty thousand dollars and suspended his license for 45 days this suspension came after two of Hawthorne's elephants Joyce and Hattie died of tuberculosis it's believed that Hawthorne may have been responsible for an outbreak of TB amongst elephants throughout America both elephants lost over a thousand pounds leading up to their deaths and the Los Angeles Times reported that when Joyce died she was a bag of bones in 2004 that's a full 10 years after tyke a USDA administrative judge ordered Hawthorne to relinquish control of their elephants this time cunio paid a fine of two hundred thousand dollars and 16 elephants were removed with the intent of rehoming them to sanctuaries sadly some of the elephants were already too sick and died before they could start a new life kunio may have lost his license to keep elephants in 2004 but it wasn't until 2017 that he lost his license to keep raise and train Tigers of which he had more than 80. this move effectively ended Hawthorne Corp John cunio Jr died in 2019. [Music] this is Valley of the temple Cemetery in my hometown of Kaneohe incidentally also where they kept the body of Ferdinand Marcos in an air-conditioned Crypt for four years and I didn't know this but home of a memorial for tyke this is not Tykes grave it's a memorial the difference being tyke's body is not actually buried here after tyke was killed her body was loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken to the halava quarantine station for a necropsy essentially an autopsy on animals to determine if there might have been anything wrong that caused her to act out a necropsy on the elephant was performed here at the department of agriculture's quarantine station scientists found no signs of any disease or condition that would explain the elephant's aberrant Behavior the bottom line is that you know we really don't know why the elephant went on a rampage that's why as you know any organic disease I think we have some as to why she went on a rampage after the necropsy was complete Tykes body was unceremoniously dumped in a landfill at Waimanalo Gulch almost 30 years later Hawthorne Corporation and John cunio are no more but elephants are still in the circus many circuses still use elephants and other animals in their acts despite public outcry in 2018 Hawaii became the second state to ban the use of exotic or wild animals in traveling animal Acts or circuses in almost every media story about the band The Legacy of Tyke and the horror it brought to the state of Hawaii was mentioned several who testified mentioned the tragedy of type the elephant who killed her trainer in August 1994. currently the other states with similar bands include California Colorado Illinois New York and New Jersey who was the first and in 2022 that icon of the Big Top Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus announced they would return to performing but would no longer have animal Acts their elephants were sent to a sanctuary in Florida here he hopes they can help humans better understand and appreciate this endangered species why did I want to make this video is it because tyke's Rampage was a central trauma of my childhood yeah that was probably part of it I had to work that out so you came along with me sorry is it because I just love animals I mean I guess but doesn't everyone kind of like animals it's like dating profiles when someone says they love travel like yeah man really I think I wanted to do this video because of the evidence that elephants mourn their dead stay with me here elephants in the wild appear to stand vigil over their dead protecting the body touching its mouth its ears attempting to wake the dead elephant elephants communicate through smell so they will spend time smelling their dead mother elephants have been known to carry their dead babies sometimes for days again I realize we're making risky comparisons when we anthropomorphize wild animals with human behaviors and go oh my God just like me especially with large charismatic megafauna like elephants and orcas but I think once you look at the evidence that these animals have families and deep Community relationships and are self-aware enough to mourn their dead it's hard to go back to seeing their lives in Chains and captivity and handstands and stupid just just stupid little outfits as in any way Humane or just there is something so dark in the desire to make animals entertain us at all costs to them if as a society we can't even give up a little bit of our exploitative entertainment if we can't be asked to deprive ourselves in any way what chance do we have to ask humans to make less selfish choices around something like fossil fuels or habitat destruction where these animals actually live orcas elephants Tigers we want to act like we can control them these huge powerful animals we want to conquer animals to conquer our fear that we ourself are animals we need to pretend we've ordered the destructive forces of nature this false control is part of the performance that little wish in our hearts that capitalism and human rules and bull hooks can control these animals but tyke got free and it took hundreds of people and more than 80 bullets to stop her [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
2023-04-23 04:07
