ANGRY ELEPHANT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18411, 29 May 1923, Page 8

ANGRY ELEPHANT.

EXECUTION AT ZOO.

Dundry.'the three-ton elephant at the Taronga Park Zoo, had been playing up lately, and it was found necessary to shoot him last week. There was one shot ■ from a service rifle, and it was all over.

Dundry had been five years at the zoo, says a Sydney paper. He was bought from Wirth Brothers for exhibition purposes, but his temper had been uncertain ever since he came to the zoo. He was the only tusked elephant in Australia, but three years ago he broke his tusks off in a fit of temper. Of late ho had been- particularly restless and troublesome, and the keepers were afraid of him. ; He was never used to give children rides, and there had never been any danger to the public, as special precautions were taken. But the keepers were never certain what ho would do next, and at last had to be verv careful.

Just before his death a crisis was reached. Dundry. in a fit of rage, knocked one of the ornaments off the top of the enclosure in which he was kept. Then he went for the wall, and cracked it from top to bottom. The officials began to fear that worse would follow, and decided that, in the interests of the employees, Dundry must be roved.

The trust consulted the police, and the execution was carried out at 6.30 a.m. bv a constable armed with a service rifle. He aimed at tho one vulnerable point, just behind the ear, and one shot was enough. The great beast swayed for a moment, and then camo crashing down dead.

A number of university students helped to cut the animal up, and carried away a number of ribs and knee bones for educational purposes. The rest of the body, about three lorry loads, was taken to a boiling-down works.