Bull Elephants

PAWS' ARK 2000 means peace and dignity for one of nature’s most majestic animals.

ARK 2000 is currently home to two Asian bull

elephants. To meet Nicholas and Prince (pictured above), click here.

Visit PAWS' YouTube Channel PAWSWEB to view dozens of videos of PAWS' bull elephants.

PAWS BULL MOUNTAIN

Caring for elephants, in general, is extremely expensive, but bull elephants, because of their size and strength, require stronger, more costly barns, stalls and fencing. PAWS' bull elephant fencing costs $168 per linear foot!

When PAWS first agreed to take Nicholas, a 13-year-old Asian bull elephant that nobody else wanted, construction began and was completed on our first bull barn on Bull Mountain. Nicholas and his companion Gypsy lived in that first barn until the two were separated and Gypsy was moved down the hill to live with our other female Asian elephants.

A second 8,000 square foot barn, referred to as "Ned's Barn" in memory of bull elephant Ned who died before he was able to make the journey to ARK 2000, was then completed, and through your donations to our "Foot of Freedom" program and our "Bucks For Bulls" campaign, we fenced a second large habitat. This barn and habitat became home to Asian bull elephant Sabu. (Sadly, Sabu passed away on January 11, 2012.)

With the pending arrival of bull elephant Prince, the construction of a third bull barn, large enough to house four elephants was completed in 2011.

Prince arrived at ARK 2000 on the evening of July 21, 2011, and now occupies the barn and habitat where Sabu used to live. He is next door neighbor to Nicholas.

Bull elephants require enormous funding and commitment in captivity. PAWS is most appreciative of the very generous donations from Bob Barker and his DJ&T Foundation, Patty Shenker, and the thousands of "Bucks For Bulls" and "Foot of Freedom" donors who have made, and continue to make Bull Mountain a refuge for these magnificent elephants!

Bull Elephant Facts: view here.

PAWS is always interested in any information regarding captive bull elephants in the United States and around the world. If you know of a captive bull elephant in peril, please contact us at info@pawsweb.org or (209) 745-2606.

In memory of Ned

Ned was a sick, malnourished Asian bull elephant seized by the USDA in 2008 from owner Lance Ramos when Ramos failed to comply with the Animal Welfare Act. PAWS offered Ned sanctuary. With the help of our friends Bob Barker and Patty Shenker, we built a second bull elephant barn at ARK 2000, and with your help we fenced a second habitat — all to house Ned. To ill to make the journey to PAWS' ARK 2000, Ned was taken to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee where they fought to save his life. Sadly, Ned did not survive.

Ned's barn and habitat at ARK 2000 is now home to Asian bull elephant Prince.

In memory of Stoney

In 1995, it was PAWS’ investigators who were leading a community protest at the Luxor Hotel about the savage treatment of Stoney.

Stoney’s Story
Stoney, a 22-year old Asian bull elephant, was injured while performing a hind-leg stand at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. He was unable to walk and consequently loaded into a hotel dumpster and kept in a maintenance shed behind the hotel.He did not receive immediate veterinary care and was kept upright inside a mechanical cattle crush in a dark isolated room.

One year went by and finally a hotel staff member and the trainer attempted to move Stoney. During the attempt to remove him from the mechanical device that was keeping him upright, he fell, injuring his other back leg.

PAWS investigators were outside with other concerned citizens, they noted hearing his screams and cries.

Stoney died that day.

To view "The Death of Stoney" Video report Click Here

Suggested reading:

ELEPHANTS AMONG US: Two Performing Elephants in 20th Century America

by M. Jaynes

Born in the 1970s, Stoney the elephant spent his life traveling and performing with his family. In 1994 he was injured while working in Las Vegas. He died after a nearly year-long medical confinement in a storage barn behind a hotel. The pages within chronicle his short life and tell the complex story of the people who knew him and those who tried to save him, including PAWS co-founder, Pat Derby. Stoney is the most important elephant you've never heard of. Also within is the story of the elephant Big Mary, who in 1916 was hanged from a railroad derrick after killing a man in Tennessee. Here an effort is made to combine previous scholarship into a new considered retelling, with the elephant as the core of its focus. Big Mary died at the beginning of the twentieth century, Stoney at the end of it. Both performing elephants underwent disaster, and both can tell us something about ourselves. This book is available through Amazon.

Click here to purchase your copy.

Mickey’s Story
Born at an elephant breeding
compound in Florida, Mickey, an Asian
bull elephant, was sold at barely one
year of age, to a dealer who sold
elephants to circuses and elephant
rides. At less than two years of age
Mickey began performing. Mickey
soon displayed stereotypic behaviors –
head bobbing, rocking and swaying –
behaviors usually seen in psychologically disturbed adult elephants.

In 1994, while traveling with the King Royal Circus, Mickey refused to
perform a trick and attempted to flee the circus tent. As Mickey
screamed in pain, his trainer repeatedly jabbed him with a bullhook.
Witnesses reported seeing blood gushing out of the puncture wounds
on Mickey’s leg as he attempted, in vain, to crawl away on all fours.

The next month, at another show, a seriously disturbed Mickey wrapped his trunk around a 3-year-old girl's neck and attempted to pull her to him. She was rescued and rushed to a hospital.

After PAWS investigators filed numerous complaints with the USDA, animal cruelty charges were finally brought against King Royal Circus and Mickey’s trainer. They were fined.

Mickey now lives at the Endangered Ark Foundation in Hugo, Oklahoma. (PETA has indicated that it makes no distinction between the Carson & Barnes Circus and the Endangered Ark Foundation, a non-profit organization run by the same family that runs the circus.)

209/745-2606 office/sanctuary
209/745-1809 fax
info@pawsweb.org