2: Tyke the Elephant
Circus Elephant Remembered for Her Traumatic Death
Born: c.1973, Mozambique
Died: 20 August 1994, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America
Tyke was a female African Bush Elephant who was horrifically shot and killed by Hawaiian police.
Tyke was captured as a baby from her homeland of Mozambique in Africa. African elephants normally stay with their mothers for two years, and then stay with their herd for the rest of their lives. Tyke never got the chance to be with her family and was instead taken away far too soon. Not only is this incredibly traumatizing, to not just elephants but all animals in general, with how intuitive and intelligent elephants are this meant Tyke was mentally wounded for the rest of her life because of this separation.
After being imported to the United States, Tyke was sold to the Hawthorn Corporation, a company that trained and rented animals to various circuses around the country. In the mid-90s, they held nineteen elephants and over eighty tigers that they leased to various organizations around the country, all based out of Illinois. The trainers employed by Hawthorn were known for their abusive practices, and the animals were kept in concrete buildings with minimal food, bedding, or other necessities.
For over twenty years, Tyke was forced to perform in various circuses. She was “trained” to perform tricks, including riding a huge tricycle. The word “trained” is used rather loosely. In reality, she was being beaten and physically abused in order to force her to submit. Most days she was shackled to a wall for up to twenty-two hours a day, only being set free of the chains for around two hours for “training” or performances. Trainers used a tool called an “Ankus” or bull hook, which was used to stab and whip the elephants to force them into submission.
In April 1993, Tyke attempted to escape for the first time in Altoona, Pennsylvania. She ran away from the ring, made her way to the balcony of the performance area, and refused to come down. The following July in Minot, North Dakota, she escaped once again and ran free for twenty-five minutes after being spooked by something. The only way Tyke was able to be recaptured was after she calmed down and willingly allowed herself to be taken into custody. Sixteen days before her death, on another Hawaiian island, Tyke escaped once again and held a family visiting the circus hostage by pinning them against a wall before finally being taken back into custody.
After enduring years of abuse from various handlers across the mainland US, Tyke was sent to perform in a circus in Hawaii. In order to be transported to Hawaii, Tyke was loaded onto a container ship and held in the cargo bay, in the dank, metal, cold, for days as she crossed from California to Hawaii. On 20 August 1994, Tyke finally had enough. Tyke was one of five elephants set to perform that day. Before the elephants were supposed to begin their part of the show, Tyke ran out onto the stage and began to brutally kick her groomer over and over again. Members of the audience thought it was part of the show and didn’t realize it was a real person being attacked. Soon after, Tyke’s handler raced onto the floor to try and stop the attack. Sadly, Tyke’s rage could not be stopped that day, and she quickly crushed her handler to death.
As the audience began to scream and panic, all of the commotion scared Tyke, and she raced for the exit, forcing her way outside onto the streets of Honolulu along with dozens of members of the crowd.
The panicked pachyderm ran around the city for over a half an hour, desperate to escape to freedom. After being initially trapped in a small, fenced lot, she barreled through the fence and made her way back onto the street, where she was shot by Hawaiian police several times.
Sadly, Tyke would never make it to freedom. She was eventually shot by Hawaiian police at least eighty-seven times before falling to the ground, partially crushing a car beneath her body. She weighed 9,500 pounds and still wasn’t dead despite the dozens of wounds. Tyke lay on the street bleeding and in tremendous pain. The Honolulu Zoo staff arrived on scene to administer what should have been a lethal dose of medication, but she still didn’t die. The police shot Tyke three more times, and she finally, mercifully, passed away.
In the beginning, Tyke’s trainer and handler that was killed in the rampage was hailed as a hero. Later on, however, it became known that he was a serial animal abuser who had been fired previously for mistreating elephants. For most of Tyke’s life, this specific trainer had worked with her on and off. When she was only a few years old, he hurt her so badly Tyke was seen screaming and trying to escape from him. The brutality would continue for two decades in Tyke’s short life.
After her death, The Hawthorn Corporation went into damage control mode, quickly throwing her injured groomer under the bus. The Hawthorn Corporation claimed that Tyke only attacked her groomer because he walked behind her back feet, which frightened her and made her attack. It didn’t take long for the real truth to surface. Her brutal death led to the creation of an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, and for a nationwide boycott in the United States, where people refused to see circuses or other performances that used elephants.
After her death, Tyke’s body was shipped away and subjected to a necropsy (that’s the animal version of an autopsy) at the Department of Agriculture’s Quarantine station. The necropsy was performed to see if there was any physical evidence to explain her rampage. Her body was then unceremoniously dumped in a landfill to decompose, instead of giving her any sort of proper burial.
The Hawthorn Corporation was eventually fined $272,500 (over three separate fines) for their neglect and abuse of the animals in their care. The owner was later found to have been abusing elephants so severely, his pachyderms were removed from his care in 2004 after having lost thousands of pounds, suffering from tuberculosis. The first cases of elephant to human transmission of TB can be traced from the Hawthorn Corporation’s elephants. The Hawthorn Corporation was the first company to have an elephant confiscated from their care by the US Department of Agriculture because of the abuse dealt to the animal.
Between 2000 and 2011, thirty-two tigers owned by the Hawthorn Corporation died in their care—of those, around half were only three years old or younger (for context, tigers usually live ten to fifteen years). In 2017, the owner finally lost his license to keep tigers as well—at the time he had over eighty tigers.
In 2015, a documentary about her life, Tyke Elephant Outlaw, was released. In the film, former trainers who worked with Tyke recounted how dangerous she was and that they often urged the circus owners to not use Tyke in their shows. Sadly, all of their warnings fell on deaf ears.
Three years later, in 2018, Hawaii finally banned the importation of wild animals for use in animal shows like circuses. They were the second state in the United States to do so. As of 2023, California, Colorado, New York, and New Jersey have also banned the importation of animals. Illinois has banned the use of elephants in performances, while Rhode Island (and California) have banned the use of bull hooks to control animals. Barnum and Bailey retired all of their elephant performers in 2022, sending their elephants to a sanctuary in Florida. Sadly however, many other circuses around the United States, and the rest of the world, continue to use and abuse elephants in order to force them to perform.
Footage of Tyke’s initial attack in the circus, along with her racing around the streets of Honolulu, survive today and can be seen online. One of my favorite YouTubers, Caitlin Doughty, made a documentary about Tyke’s story, which I have linked below. Tyke’s story is what inspired “The Animal List” on my website in the first place.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Sources:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/tyke-elephant
“Why Did Tyke the Elephant Have to Die?” YouTube Video Created by Caitlin Doughty, Ask a Mortician
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1994/08/30/circus-elephant-goes-on-rampage-in-hawaii/
https://ladyfreethinker.org/hawaii-finally-bans-exotic-animal-acts-25-years-death-tyke-elephant/
https://www.peta.org/blog/hideous-hawthorn-corporation-history/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/135593841/tyke_the-elephant