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Show -- The Daily Herald Tuesday, September 20, 1994 Elephant killings come as no surprise Innovation lures puffins back to Maine By VICTORIA BRETT Associated Press Writer - By VICKI CROKE : Boston Globe ' The pictures from Honolulu were wide-eyea panicked horrifying circus elephant named Tyke on a rampage, crushing her trainer and running through the streets before being cut down in a hail of bullets, 87 of them hitting their mark. It may have been a shocking scene to the public, but it was an all too familiar problem to people in the zoo and circus world. Elephants kill more handlers than any other animal at zoos. Why? "Because they can," says John Lehnhardt, assistant curator of mammals at the National Zoo in Washington. Meaning that they kill because they are given the motivation or are allowed to develop behaviors that lead to aggression. And they are unimaginably strong. Their trunks contain 50,000 muscles and weigh as much as a man; even their relatively tiny tails pack the wallop of a baseball bat. Lehnhardt is one of fhe leading elephant experts in the country, and he is adamant that every one of these deaths (about one a year) has been predictable and therefore preventable. Though John Cuneo, the man who rented this elephant out to circuses, vehemently denies this. Tyke had a very bad reputation, according to insiders in the elephant-trainin- g community. As soon as Lehnhardt started watching the footage on TV, he says, he wondered if it was Ty ke. Lehnhardt had never seen or female worked with the 2 year-old African elephant, but he had heard 1 -- about her. Cuneo, president of Hawthorne Corp. in Illinois, which owns 20 other elephants, says there we're no warning signs and that from what he has heard, the groom (the person who cleans up around the elephant) startled Tyke by going behind her. Accidents like this "happen with all livestock," Cuneo maintains. he is dead , Elephant experts say wrong. When elephants attack, they mean to and there are always warning signs that aggression is building. If you've ever seen a mother elephant around her baby, you know that they are quite aware of their bulk and can be very agile and delicate in their movements (because of their cushioned feet, they can sneak up behind you as quietly as a cat). One of the most common attacks is when an elephant does a "head-&abdcrushing its victim with its ;m4ssive skull. A TV tabloid show has run foo; tage of Tyke in a panic in Altoona, Pa. Cuneo says the animal simply tiaeked up against a flimsy wall and 'was startled when it caved in. There was another incident in which she went after a groom in South Dakota, but according to Cuneo, the cure was to dismiss her trainer at the time. An elephant groom is a g kind of job, with a high turnover rate. "This elephant was famous for going after grooms," Lehnhardt says. Allen Campbell, the trainer who was killed while trying to save the groom, was experienced. It looks as though he was not the problem. And if good, calm elephants are that excitable, it's fair to ask if they should be used around the public in circus acts. ," bottom-of-the-barr- el low-payin- ld The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protests the use of animals in circuses. In an essay about this inci- dent, PETA chairwoman Ingrid Newkirk pointed to two other incidents involving circus elephants one at the "Live with Regis & Ka-thLee" show, in which a Moscow Circus employee was injured by an elephant before going on the air. In the other, which occurred in Florida, in 1992, a Great American Circus elephant carrying a woman and several children on her back had to be shot. PETA maintains that these ie intelligent and altruistic animals, SEAL ISLAND, Maine The Atlantic Puffins casually mill moved some of them and got re granite rocks and mating calls d waft from CD players. "We're testing the power of social attraction," Kress said. It appears to be working. This year the puffins, which look like a cross between a penguin and a parrot, came back in record numbers. With 19 nesting pairs on Seal Island in outer Penobscot Bay, 120 pairs on neighboring Matinicus Rock and 15 on solar-powere- Lehnhardt has seen the good and the bad in elephant care by zoos and private owners. He is at times ap- palled by the way some elephants are maintained. In fact, the process of "taming" an elephant has tradiintionally been a violent one that volves breaking the animal's spirit. Chaining and beating were once quite common, though hopefully less so today. However, in 1988, one zoo director unabashedly told Newsweek magazine, "How do elephant's you get a 10,000-pounattention? Hit him, that's how." ; ; .,', The lines that anglers cast to catch and the fishermen's carelessness can cause the birds to die terrible deathsv " Every day birds die horrendous deaths from entanglements with fishing tackle," Ralph Heath, director of the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in Indian Shores, Fla., told record numbers thanks to an innovative restoration effort by the them to learn a new home. They could take care of themselves after we finished rearing them." Kress said. A total of 950 chicks were transplanted to Maine's islands by 1989, including Seal Island, a stark 100-acsite once used for target practice by warplanes and warships during World War II. In a further attempt to lure puffins to the islands the most southern colony for Atlantic Puffins decoys were perched atop 'V fish often wind up hooking birds Maine's puffins were nearly wiped out by hur'ers a century ago. But they're returning in National Audubon Society. "The message is that it is possible for people to actively encourage a species to establish a colony. People can restore it as well as decimate it," said Dr. Steven Kress, director of the society's Puffin Project. Kress and his team of researchers launched the recolonization project in 1973, transplanting puffin chicks from Newfoundland, where they are plentiful, to man-mad- e burrows on Eastern Egg Rock, a desolate island in Muscongus Bay. "I thought it might work if we : By SPORTS AFIELD For AP Special Features about this rocky island, looking like clow ns in tuxedos too content to notice the dozens of tourists who've boated out to see them. But life hasn't always been easy for these quirky birds sometimes called sea parrots on the islands off the coast of Maine. 4 ij0 "' George Harrison in an article in the current issue of Sports Afield. "And most could be prevented if sport fishermen were more careful about how they handled their tackle. " Heath has made a career of rescu-- i ing birds entangled with fishing tac-kle. Using a landing net, Heath will scoop up a pelican with a fishing rig hooked to its wingr then straddle the bird with his legs and carefully remove hook, rig and monofilament line. After examining the bird for other injuries, he wilL release it. v If the bird needs further treatment, it would join the 150 recuperating and permanently injured pelicans, herons, egrets, gulls, terns and cormorants at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. These incidents of birds hooked and entangled with fishing tackle are not isolated cases. Plastics in general, and fishing line in particular, cause injury and death to waterbirds along all of our seacoasts and the shorelines of our inland waters. Plastics such as sandwich bags are often fatal when eaten by birds and turtles, and entanglement with holders and monofilament line discarded by unthinking fishermen also can spell death to a variety" of wildlife. long-handl- 4 p. AP Photo to ago, the colorful birds have been the island in a decade-lon- g project. About 10 nesting pairs return each summer. group of puffins, including two tagged ones, gather near their nesting colony on Seal Island, Maine. Nearly annihilated by hunters a century A Eastern Egg Rock, there were more puffins in the Gulf of Maine this summer than any time this century. "The puffins are not an endangered species (in Maine), but a rare and vulnerable species," Kress said. Kress's model for restoring bird colonies is being used to attract other types of birds in California, New York, Nebraska, Massachusetts and Hawaii, as well as Japan and the Galapagos Islands. As the recolonization efforts attract puffins, the puffins attract tourists. Throughout the summer, boatloads of people come to see what has become one of Maine's unofficial symbols. In the past six years, about 13,000 have paid about $35 to spend bird-watche- rs a day on an Audubon Society "puffin cruise" in hopes of catching a glimpse of the unusual seabird. "The puffins are cute and colorful with human characteristics ... their popularity is like the penguin thing," said Rick Shauffler, the Audubon Society supervisor for Seal Island, as he sat in a blind watching birds with binoculars. The bird's dumpy body and stubby legs make them clumsy on land, but the puffins are masters of the sea, where they live when they are not nesting in the sumbirds can mer. The pigeon-size- d dive at least 150 feet down and hold up to 28 fish at one time in their colorful beaks. "If a puffin could lay an egg that floats we'd never see them, ' ' Susan Jones, a volunteer with the Audubon Society, said on a re cent cruise. But because the puffins nest for four months in the summer, so does Shauffler. For the past four summers, the has been the bearded guardian of this treeless island. He lives in a small shack and, along with other field researchers, records crucial data on the puffins and Arctic Terns. He rarely leaves, relying on the puffin cruises to bring him mail and supplies. It is an ideal life for Shauffler. Peacefully watching birds most of the day, and taking breaks to go fishing or haul lobsters. He often ends his day with a sunset six-pa- "We patrol these islands every week," Heath said, "and we never fail to find birds that need help. We keep all the line and tackle we re-- ,' trieve and fill a gallon jar about every six months just from the fish-- ; ing tackle attached to pelicans brought into the sanctuary." dinner. "You have to be into it and enjoy the opportunities you have here. ... You can't miss the things you can't have," he said. Heath is not alone in his efforts to save birds from the danger of fishing tackle along Florida's 8,000 miles of coastline. Child's cruelty to animals is a symptom Dear Ann Landers: I just read your column about the little boy who was cruel to animals. I thought you might be interested in this article written by Betsy Sikora Siino, which appeared in Dog Fancy Magazine. I know it's too long to print, but I hope you w ill share parts of it with your readers. Animal Fan Dear Fan: Here it is, with my thanks for sending it my way. A Shared Cry Each day, we hear of increasingly violent crimes committed by in- creasingly troubled individuals. Their childhoods reveal violent parents, inappropriate discipline, neglect, emotional repression. And you find animal abuse. An abusive individual who chooses a child as a victim almost invariably begins that violent behavior with animals. As difficult and unpleasant as it may be to explore this relationship, acknowledging it could spell salvation for countless victims in this tragic cycle. We speak of pets as members of the family, a notion generally referred to in the warm, fuzzy sense. But there can be a dark side to a pet's role as family member: When a family is infected by violence, the animals in that household are just as likely to be v ictims as the human members. An individual who abuses and expresses rage and humiliation through violence does not choose a ture an animal and get away with it." vA'fVV Ann Dear Ann Landers: I am upset with my sister, and it's all your fault. You were the one who start- ed that ridiculous controversy about whether the toilet tissue should go over the top or be hung Advice Columnist large, virile subject as a victim. fhe first victims are often animals. While animals may remain a favored target, the violence expands to include humans, usually the abuser's own child. This child, while suffering the perpetrator's brutality, may watch the abuser hurt or even kill a family pet, or the child may turn on the pet himself. Taken to the extreme, this can lead to the creation of a societal monster. Ted Bundy, Albert (the Boston Strangler) and Jeffrey Dahmer are only a few of the notorious serial killers who began their careers with animals. Most victims of such abuse do not so that it falls close to the wall. I have always hung the roll so the paper goes over the top, and my husband and children are accustomed to it. "Lulu" came to visit last weekend and changed the rolls in all four bathrooms. When I called her on it, she said, "I have a thing about this. It makes me extremely nervous to see it done the other way." I said nothing, but it burned me up. Was I wrong to keep quiet? Chico, Calif. Dear Chico: No. You did her a The Natural great kindness. Your sister has e disoran insisted that she to and have der, change the rolls back the way they were would have been extremely upsetting. obsessive-compulsiv- Solution Fibro Mtlic is proven by clini-- , cal studies to relieve muscle pain, caused by fibromyalgia-anchronic fatigue syndrome. More effective than the often prescribed aspirin, fbuprofen and other pain analgesics. Gem of the Day: A closed Fibro Malic by Medical mouth gathers no feet. is recommended Doctors. Nutiritio- - ists and pain specialists. there's a pain in your chest, be a pain If STEWARTS PLAZA PHARMACY; 3153 Canyon Road 2 Provo in the neck. 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