The sad story of Jumbo, the elephant in which Disney was inspired to produce Dumbo

The life of Jumbo, The elephant that inspired the acclaimed animated feature film Walt Disney Photos taken on the big screen in October 1941, is far from what this film has shown and also, although less, the newest version of Tim Burton. Not only because there was not a pachyderm with big flying ears or friendly mice, but also because the "biggest elephant in the world" had a miserable life filled with pain and alcohol.

Jumbo Means "hello" in Swahili was captured in Abyssinia (an African kingdom that encompbaded the current territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea) in 1862 when I was still a baby. From there he was taken to Paris and in 1865 he was sold to the director of the London Zoo, Abraham Bertlett, where he arrived on June 26 in terrible conditions, perhaps because of the trauma caused by his capture.

The modality used by the hunters (we think they continue to do so) was very violent: when crossing with an elephant and her cubs, they started throwing spears against the mother until she killed him. When they got it, they tore up their hooks to tamper with the ivory, then grabbed the baby who was lying frightened next to the corpse. This is how they caught Jumbo at a time when circuses and zoos were looking for exotic species to attract more visitors.

History of captivity: Jumbo arrives in London and becomes the big attraction

Upon arrival at the London Zoo, the boy was baptized Jumbo by Matthew Scotta man who worked in the place and who, saddened by the bad condition of the animal, offered to take care of him. "I had never seen such a helpless creature. The elephant was full of parasites that had bitten his skin and had almost eaten his eyes, "wrote the guardian in an autobiography in which he tells his life with Jumbo.

Scott is busy with the elephant until the moment of his death. According to the testimonies of the time, a bond of extraordinary affection was created between the two.

After six months of intensive care, food and affection, Jumbo regained health and was introduced to the public who lived as an idol. However, the excessive affection of adults and children was his condemnation.

Thanks to a remarkable invention, there remained traces of what had happened in his life: his arrival in London took place almost at the same time as the arrival of the photograph. All visitors to the zoo therefore wanted a portrait mounted on the back of the elephant.

"The fame of the animal was so impressive that even the children of Queen Victoria were his admirers"says the naturalist David Attenborough in the 2017 BBC documentary that reveals how his life and death were.

During the years Jumbo lived in the zoo of the English capital, the big attraction and the public paid every day to put themselves in a basket that ran on their backs to walk around.

In 1880, Jumbo began to react violently, not with people, but at night in his compound and against himself. During the day, he sustained the weight of hundreds of people on his back, but when the sun went down, he became furious enough to break the fences of his pen and hit his hooks in the bars. of iron.

Some testimonials Scott was the only one able to control these reactions. Apparently, to calm him down, he supplied him with large doses of whiskey..

The situation annoyed Bartlett, who feared that Jumbo would be violent with the public and make him lose his business. His fear was such that he had bought a gun and ordered his employees to shoot if the elephant was attacking.

Later, he decided to sell it. In a way, he knew that Phineas Taylor Barnum he was looking for an elephant from Africa to add to his circus collection and offered him $ 10,000, a high figure for the time. Jumbo was sold to a circus in 1882.

The news angered the British nation and even the children raised money to buy it. They could do nothing more than snuggle into the harbor to say goodbye.

The transfer of Jumbo: from London to the United States

The March 24, 1882Jumbo was embarked on the Assyrian monarch to New York, where he arrived after two weeks of sailing in the Atlantic. He did it with Scott, his caregiver.

According to reporters who covered the moment Jumbo left the London Zoo, Scott offered to travel with the animal because it was the only way to get him into the wooden corral that had happened to transport it.

"Jumbo refused to enter the wooden enclosure to be transported by boat and even broke the chains, which he entered only when the circus owners agreed that his guard Scott # 39; accompanies ", writes the press the day the elephant left for the United States and was fired by thousands of people on the shore of the pier.

His transfer was clearly traumatic: Jumbo was dizzy and agitated, and to prevent him from "making tantrums," his guard gave him liters of whiskey to calm him down, says the English documentary.

On the other side of the Atlantic, thousands of others were waiting for his arrival. For Barnum, the perfect business had begun.

On April 9, 1882, Jumbo arrived in the United States with Matthew Scott. and since then he has been the protagonist of a national tour prepared by PT Barnum to show his new acquisition. Conscious of having bought an elephant that he could never train, he discovered another economic trajectory and called it "the world's largest elephant".

So, he goes on tour in the United States and Canada: for 3 years, 9 million people paid to see it, which represents half a million dollars in revenue.

During the tour, Jumbo lived with about twenty elephants, including Tom Thumb, a dwarf elephant with whom he shared a special wagon.

That's Scott himself who warned Barnum that Jumbo looked sick, that he had sore legs and that he could not lie down. The constant weight of so many people on his back had serious consequences. But the owner of the circus mocked it and decided to continue the tour in Ontario, Canada.

Jumbo was walking hundreds of people in Saint Thomas. At the end of the day, the circus built a camp and the train carrying them was ready to leave. All elephants climbed, with the exception of little Tom and Jumbo exhausted.

As the majestic 24-year-old elephant tried to lift the car, a locomotive, which no one apparently saw, hit him completely. Jumbo fell and, after hours of agony, died on September 15, 1885, next to Scott.

The extravagant version of Barnum ensured that Jumbo "went on the train to save a smaller elephant". Later, marks on his body confirmed that Jumbo had been thrown from behind, which had caused serious internal injuries.

Witnesses of the sad result said that Scott cried inconsolably for Jumbo's death. Touched by the loss, years later, he wrote in an autobiography recounting his years alongside the animal.

Jumbo's bones testified to the bad life he lived and the reason for his death

The BBC channel has produced an exceptional documentary in which Remains of Jumbo are shown to the world for the first time. The famous British naturalist David Attenborough traces the course of the elephant and brings together a group of experts from different disciplines who examine the skeleton of the animal kept in an American museum. Together, they set out to solve the mysteries of the life and death of the elephant.

The first answer they were looking for was what motivated Jumbo's "crises" while they were living in the London Zoo. "Jumbo had an unusual overlap of layers of new and old bones on his hips", said Richard Thomas, an archaeologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.

"These injuries must have been incredibly painful and result from the weight that Jumbo had to bear as visitor groups", Thomas said and pointed out that "He also suffered knee injuries".

"When we look at his knees, we see all kinds of changes in the bone that we would not expect to see an elephant of this age. Do not forget that Jumbo was only 24 years old and that he was still growing"said the expert pointing at a crack and warning that African elephants even grow up to 40 years old.

According to Thomas' badysis, jumbo bones "look more like an elephant of 40 or 50 years old". "Those who thought to love him the most were the ones who had damaged him the most by climbing constantly on his back," warned the naturalist.

These were partly responsible for their acute pain related to "tantrums and jealousy". Jumbo also had a tooth deformity: "Elephants have six teeth, but only one on each side wears out at one point. When the tooth falls, another tooth emerges to replace it, but if the old tooth does not wear out enough it does not fall and causes the new, distorted tooth to fall, "warned Thomas.

It is therefore concluded that the attacks of violence were due to the fact that "I was suffering from a terrible tooth pain generated by severe gum infections and surely reaching the nerve root", more intense pain at night. As if that was not enough, Jumbo has lived all his life malnourished.

The embalmed body of Jumbo was kept for several years at Tuffts University, Mbadachusetts, where it was exposed until a fire destroyed the rest of the animal, with the exception of the tail which, a few years later, was badyzed by the researcher. Holly Miller, from the University of Nottingham in England.

Miller found thick hairs on Jumbo's tail, indicating that he had high levels of nitrogen. "This means that he was not healthy, his body did not receive the necessary nutrients and his body extracted abnormal levels of nitrogen from the food to try to repair constant injuries "Miller said in the documentary.

Regarding the size of Jumbo, the scientists concluded that he measured 3.45 meters from the shoulder to the ground, or 20% more than what should be an African elephant from his age, which is about 2.84 meters, on average. According to Thomas, the pachyderm was still growing. I also weighed about 6,000 pounds.

Another painful conclusion to Jumbo was the size of their fangs. "On all the pictures, I had little fangs and they were almost nonexistent," revealed Attenborough as he read some notes from Abraham Bartlett that answered his doubts as to why this size:"During his nocturnal crises, he broke his two fangs by crossing the iron bars of the enclosure and when they came back, he crushed them against the masonry".

This shows the stress, today called zoocosis, that the elephant has suffered in captivity. The naturalist compared what he observed at Jumbo with other retired circus and circus elephants that he visited in a Tennessee sanctuary.

The conclusion of the BBC's excellent documentary remains in the researcher's voice Vicki Fishlock: "Neither a zoo nor a circus should shelter elephants like Jumbo or the most current ones.. Elephants must live in their natural environment because they are social animals that need to contact their peers. "

This is what Tim Burton's version, published a few days ago, offers around the world.