Some of you may be interested in a historical article published on the CAPS website http://www.captiveanimals.org/news/2009/big_mary.html -

In 1916, an elephant named Big Mary was hanged in the state of Tennessee after killing her inexperienced keeper. She is the only known elephant to be executed by hanging in the history of circuses, and her story has intrigue, overreaction, fear, misguided humans, speculation, tragedy and more.

As time marches on, her death recedes even further into the dark reaches of American history and is now little more than a curious anecdotal footnote.

Elephant researcher and advocate Mike Jaynes writes in remembrance of Big Mary and other fallen and nearly forgotten performing elephants who died thousands of miles from their Asian jungle and African Savannah birthplaces.

The article, The Hanging of Big Mary: Someone Worth Remembering, tells Mary's story in detail http://www.captiveanimals.org/news/2009/big_mary.html

This was a truly horrible, prolonged, death for this elephant who did nothing more than protect herself. Honestly, we're not that much further today, except that we chain them instead and prolong their lives of agony for years instead of hours.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mike Jaynes, the author of this book, at the PAWS conference last month. He is a young humanities professor at the Univ of Tennessee in Chattanooga. He gave a very interesting presentation about students attitudes towards animals. Among several classes he teaches is feminism and he told me he would like to take his students to TES.

I had the opportunity for a one on one visit with him, as he was on the first leg of my flight home. He is currently working on a story about Stoney, the bull elephant who died a horrific death in Las Vegas in the early 1990s at the Luxor Hotel. Jaynes has a great web site that focuses on the plight of captive eles. Just google his name and you'll find it! His information about Stoney was fascinating.