Free Republic

Tim Saenger said he was “still in shock” Monday, days after a surveillance video showed the burning and destruction of the large elephant statue that had stood for decades outside his home in unincorporated Leyden Township. Saenger said his father brought the statue from Wisconsin to Northlake in 1986. It remains unclear why anyone would target the elephant, Saenger said. “We don’t have enemies or beef with people,” he said. “Most like me and my family.” Saenger said that people at times would associate the elephant with the Republican Party, and he hoped it wasn’t a politically motivated attack. Saenger...

In 1916, a circus in Tennessee sentenced an elephant to death by hanging In the early 1900s, it wasn't uncommon for humans to use their waxing technological prowess for the express purpose of torturing the hell out of animals. In one particularly mind-boggling incident, a five-ton circus elephant named Mary was condemned to death by hanging after her owners nixed executions by firearms, dismemberment, and electrocution. After Mary killed her handler in St. Paul, Virginia because of abuse/poor training/a toothache/some nebulous combination thereof, the proprietors of Sparks World Famous Shows executed the pachyderm in the railyards of Erwin, Tennessee on...

The teeth of the newly described Eritreum melakeghebrekristosi are a tip-off to its position as a missing link in the elephant family tree. ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A pig-sized, tusked creature that roamed the earth some 27 million years ago represents a missing link between the oldest known relatives of elephants and the more recent group from which modern elephants descended, an international team that includes University of Michigan paleontologist William J. Sanders has found. The teeth of the newly described Eritreum melakeghebrekristosi are a tip-off to its position as a missing link in the elephant family tree. The group's findings,...

Bob Barker pleaded with city officials to close the Los Angeles Zoo's pachyderm exhibit and allow its three elephants to retire to a sanctuary. Appearing jovial when he arrived at Friday's City Council meeting, the veteran game show host and longtime animal rights activist turned serious when he began to talk about the zoo's elephants, Gita, Ruby and Billy. "I came here today to ask, to beg you ... to vote to release those elephants from that zoo," Barker said. "They have lived in misery." Gita and Ruby are ill, leaving only Billy on display. A fourth elephant, Tara, died...