Still, it remains impossible not to be moved by Tyke’s fate, however mechanical its presentation. Joseph claims that there will be a special place in hell for her, given her treatment of those elephants – despite her later remorse – but Tyke Elephant Outlaw never quite manages to expand its horizons in the same way. Rather than questioning the premise of captive performing elephants, though, the film dwells on the violent training techniques that dominated the field during the nineties – which are rightly abhorred – but fails to build momentum into something as persuasive or impassioned as Blackfish. He and many others pre-empted Tyke’s outburst and had warned the owners that she was not fit to continue working in the circus. declined to be interviewed, a lot of time is spent with Tyrone Taylor, her former handler. Even as a shot of wild elephants marching across the plain recalls The Jungle Book (1967) a title card reverts attention back to the criminal brutality of the unscrupulous Hawthorn Corporation who owned Tyke. Indeed, it is only fairly late in proceedings that animal rights activism is properly introduced and even later that someone asserts that elephants should not be in captivity at all. However, Elephant Outlaw then seems to struggle with where it wants to direct the audience’s resultant outrage. “She was shot 87 times” reveals one contributor to suitably shocking effect and the archival video shows scores of people weeping on the streets as they watch the horrifying events unfold. “She was an unhappy camper,” claims one former handler, Sally Joseph, whose testimonies arguably prove the most intriguing and complex.ĭirectors Susan Lambert and Stefan Moore do a good job of splicing together news footage and first person accounts of the attack in the big top, and the subsequent race through the city streets.
Tyke elephant outlaw archive#
For the majority of its runtime, Elephant Outlaw recounts these events combining harrowing archive footage with the recollections of circus-goers and various trainers and employees whose overlapping accounts paint a picture first of the distressing rampage, and then of the history of a long-distressed animal. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has only recently stopped using Elephants in their circus.Captured in Mozambique as a calf, it was twenty years of chains and performing tricks before one day in 1994 Tyke snapped, killing her groom and trainer before marauding out of a packed circus and onto the streets of Honolulu. Circus of the Stars and Carson & Barnes still use exotic animals, including Elephants, in their shows today. While the Tyke incident challenged people around the world to think about our relationship to circus animals, many circuses such as the Kelly Miller Circus, UniverSoul Circus, Cole Bros. A circus spokesman recently told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that animals would be excluded from the shows, and PETA applauded the decision in a press release: In 2014, when the Moscow International Circus announced that it would perform in Honolulu with “wild animals”, activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals circulated a petition against it. No circus elephants have performed since Tyke, even though there is no prohibition against it. Twenty seven years later, witnesses still remember it vividly, and the attitude in Honolulu toward animal-driven circuses is distrusting. People watched aghast from their cars, apartments and the sidewalk.
It was a foot chase between her and the Honolulu police, who eventually shot her 86 times before she succumbed to nerve damage and brain haemorrhages. Tyke went on to fatally crush her trainer, who was trying to intervene, before fleeing the arena herself.įor nearly 30 minutes, Tyke ran through the streets of the Kakaako neighborhood’s business district at rush hour, nearly trampling circus promoter Steve Hirano when he tried to fence her in. Panicked, audience members fled for the exits. They soon realized the supposed dummy was a severely injured groomer. “We thought it was part of the show,” one witness told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. On August 20, 1994, during the show, Tyke entered the ring at the Blaisdell Arena, kicking around what looked to audience members like a dummy. Tyke, a 20-year-old female African Elephant, was in Honolulu with Circus International.
Mention “Tyke the Elephant” to anyone who lived in Honolulu 27 years ago and chances are they’ll shake their head and talk about what a dark moment it was in their city’s history. 20th August 1994: The day that tyke the elephant was shot 86 times! Tyke: Elephant Outlaw is a feature-length documentary that explores the story of a circus elephant who killed her trainer in front of thousands of people in Honolulu in 1994.
0 kommentar(er)
