The Elephant Sanctuary, Hohenwald, Tennessee

She's A Friend Indeed

By Rich Davis (Contact)
Saturday, October 27, 2007

Bunny the elephant flourishes at Tennessee sanctuary

Shirley and Bunny It is Shirley and Bunny. Bunny, the former resident at Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden, is at right.
Courtesy The Elephant Sanctuary

Winkie, Shirley, Jenny and Bunny at the Elephant Sancuary in Tennessee.
Courtesy Fred Clarke

Carol Buckley sounds like the "Brady Bunch" mom, only her brood doesn't have any boys, just 19 girls.

"I was telling Bunny the other day on her anniversary, 'You've been here EIGHT years!'"

We can only imagine how Bunny — the 56-year-old Asian elephant who spent 45 years of her life (until Sept. 29, 1999) at Evansville's Zoo and Botanic Garden — responded.

"Bunny continues to amaze us," Buckley said by phone from the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn. "She does this thing. When she sees you for the first time of the day, she gets excited and shakes her head back and forth and makes a guttural sound.

"Then she takes your hand and puts it in her ear opening. I get the impression she wants you to tickle the inside of her ear. Then she gets silly and shakes her head. It must have been something (zookeepers) did when she was a baby."

Bunny has been a news diva of late, from a New York Times Magazine piece with her on the cover to the current November issue of Reader's Digest, recounting what a wonderful "best friend" Bunny was to pachyderm pals Jenny (who was dying) and Shirley (who was grieving).
VIP program

* The Tennessee preserve is not open to the public, but there is a VIP program (for supporters who make a five-year pledge) that offers twice-a-year visits to the preserve. There are no guarantees you will see elephants even from a distance, however.

* Next March, the sanctuary's Welcome Center will open in downtown Hohenwald, Tenn., featuring staff programs, videos, merchandise and more.

* feed bunny

* Bunny and the other elephants have their own endowment funds, but you can also donate money to feed Bunny for a day or buy one of her Christmas cards. Go to www.elephants.com for details or call (931) 796-6500 (punch 1).

"Bunny's a love, so easy. She's always happy to see you and trumpets when you arrive," says Buckley, who in 1995 co-founded the 2,700-acre preserve an hour southwest of Nashville with Scott Blais, another former elephant trainer.

Their goal: to take aging or ailing elephants from zoos and circuses and give them the freedom to roam and be elephants.

The story of Jenny and Shirley, the oldest and largest of the elephants, has been documented near and far, from CBS and the Discovery Channel to National Geographic.

The two former circus elephants met when Jenny was just a calf. Although they only spent a few weeks together, Shirley became a surrogate mother to Jenny. Twenty-three years later, when an ailing Jenny and a crippled Shirley were reunited at the Elephant Sanctuary, their reunion was punctuated by trumpeting and celebratory bumping.

After a number of happy years, last year Jenny — too weak to roam the grassy plains and wooded hills — found a shady valley in underbrush to die.

Shirley stood vigil, along with Bunny and Tarra, another elephant. Their vocalizing and trumpeting could be felt across the sanctuary.

Before Jenny died, Shirley retreated to a nearby hill to grieve while Bunny and Tarra continued to stroke Jenny.

Buckley says Bunny answered each of Jenny's "rumbles" with a crescendo trumpet.

Buckley: "If it hadn't been for Bunny, I don't know if Shirley would have survived. It was like losing her child. Bunny spent every moment with Shirley, helped her through Jenny's death. They're as close now as Jenny and Shirley were, inseparable.

"Shirley walks slow because of a (bad leg). Bunny walks slow because, well, she always walks slow. That's Bunny."

It's not because of her feet. Being able to walk miles every day while eating grass, leaves and hay helped Bunny overcome foot problems she developed at Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden on Evansville's West Side.

The arrival of another elephant, a relatively young (in her 30s) and gregarious pachyderm named Misty, soon helped all the elephants, including Shirley, bounce back, Buckley adds.

"Misty's a lot like Bunny, an uplifting energy. Nothing gets her down."

Soon they'll be meeting Dulari, a 43-year-old elephant sent to the sanctuary by the Pittsburgh Zoo, which decided it could no longer provide for elephants in a responsible way. [Note: the original article made a mistake in stating that Dulary was 40 (she's actually 43) and that she was temporarily in quarantine. She is not in quarantine.]

Buckley, who says elephants in the wild can live for 60 to 70 years, notes Hohenwald's herd leaves the heated barns each March and Bunny is usually the last to return once winter descends.

Bunny, born in colder Burma where she was captured as a baby, came to Evansville because of a tragedy. In 1954, the Evansville zoo's star attraction, Kay the elephant, knocked down and killed the zoo director Bob McGrath; city officials spared Kay's life but traded her to a circus animal dealer in Texas for a 3-year-old elephant later named Bunny.