Medallion fiftiest anniversary Natura Artis Magistra 1838 - 1888 (collection Gerald Postma)
The first elephants in Artis.
Jack (I)
Male, born ?, died August 8, 1849 (Amsterdam)
In 1839, one year after the foundation of Artis, the first elephant had to come to the zoo. Elephant Jack was one of the animals of a traveling zoo which was bought by Artis. Jack was very hard to handle, he was constantly demolishing his home escaping from the zoo.
During one of these escapes, on August 8, 1849 he was shot by the police. But he never to leave the zoo: his skeleton was preserved and erected, and today you can visit Jack in the Zoological Museum (in the Aquarium).
Many elephants of Artis were gifts from various countries or important people:
In 1864: Baron Sloet van de Beelen gave an elephant to Artis. In 1895, Betsy was presented by the Sultan of Siak followed by the Sultan of Assahan who gave an 18-month-old Sumatran elephant named Bringing in 1907 to the zoo. In 1935, Mr Rookmaker the Resident of Lampong (Netherlands India) gave Sabine in and India gave Murugan in 1954 (see the story of Murugan below). The same government sent Suseela in 1967 to Amsterdam in thanks to the children of The Netherlands for their raising money to alleviate hunger in India. Finally the Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) gave HRH Prince Bernhard the 2-months-old Jumbo to the renovated elephant house.
The old pachydermhouse on an old postcard. This is the former horse stable and storehouse which in 1898 was equiped for elephants and rhinos. You can see a rhino on the left side of the photo and an elephant in the middle. This building was renovated in the early seventies in the last century. Now only elephants live in this house. Artis no longer has rhinos.
Unknown elephant
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
This is an old picture on a postcard circa 1900. You can see how elephants were treated in those days. The keepers were walking between the elephants as the animals were trained. In modern zoos, elephants are trained only to assist with footcare and other medical procedures, or they are not trained at all.
It's likely this elephant was used for rides.
More info to come...
Unknown elephant
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Unknown Elephant
A beautiful, retouched, photo of 1912
Unknown elephants
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
More info to come...
"Elephant training" says this postcard and shows how elephants shouldn't. Elephants are not for our fun. We have to respect them and teaching them some tricks is not the way to show respect.
In the early days, it was usual for zoos to train elephants for entertainment and rides. Today we know how to respect animals, and zoos start building large exhibits, and have changed their training to the hands-off system. Keepers no longer walk between the elephants except when absolutely necessary (such as medical treatment). Most zoos still train the elephants for footcare using the protected system.
Unfortunately, only some modern zoos, like those in The Netherlands and a few in Western Europe are using the protected or hands-off system. Even now some zoos still have animal shows!
More info to come...
Coba
Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus)
Female, born 1904, died September 1935
Artis bought Coba on May 13, 1906.
Coba become paralysed caused by an abscess, and she was euthanized
More info to come...
Photo: Artis guide ca 1935 (collection Gerald Postma)
Radjah
Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus)
Male. Born 1919.
Radjah was a former army elephant of the Royal Dutch - Indies Army and arrived at Artis on October 20, 1929 after sailing with the steamship Borneo. Loaded in a crate on a lorry, Radjah was greeted by thousands of children while he was transported to the zoo.
What is a circus doing in the story of the history of elephants in Amsterdam?
In 1939 Circus Strassburger was traveling through The Netherlands and was performing in Amsterdam in November of that year. An exhibtion building was used as shelter for the animals and on November 22, Birma gave birth to Gina.
Birma had been borrowed from Circus Amar of Blois. Circus Strassburger also performed in Leeuwarden and the photo on the right was taken there. It's not likely that this is the pregnant Birma.
From mid-December, 1939, until mid-November 1940, mother and daughter were housed in Artis. The zoo was in serious financial difficulty and therefore a committee was installed for fundraising (Artis Reddingscomité) and they collected 1000 guilders to buy Gina from the cirus.
Birma was never to return to the circus: via Rotterdam Zoo and Hannover Zoo, she finally arrived in 1949 at the Gelsenkirchen Zoo, where she lived until her death at the old age of 70 in 1982.
Birma and Gina walking from the exhibition building to the zoo.
Gina
Asian olifant (Elephas maximus)
Female, born in Amsterdam on November 22, 1939, died May 11, 1967 at Artis.
Her name means Born in Amsterdam The Netherlands (Geboren In Nederland Amsterdam)
Gina was born in an exhibtion building while Circus Strassburger was traveling through The Netherlands. Because mother Birma and Gina couldn't travel with the circus they were brought to Artis. The zoo was in serious financial difficulty and therefore a committee for fundraising was installed (Artis Reddingscomité) which collected 1000 guilders to buy Gina from the circus. Birma left the zoo in November 1940 to make room for another elephant. Gina was left alone. She lived in the zoo until her death as a result of arthritis, the number one killer of elephants in captivity.
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
A beautiful picture of two lady elephants in front of the old elephanthouse. This photo appears on a wooden jig-saw puzzle and shows the situation before the renovation of the building in 1974.
More info to come...
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Male, born January 23, 1953 at Malabar, India, died June 4, 2003 (Amsterdam)
His name means: Beauty, Youth.
Murugan was famous in Amsterdam. The story starts in 1952, when children of Amsterdam asked Mr Nehru, Prime Minister of India, for a male elephant, as the zoo has only females. An petition was started, and a parade was held through the streets of the city with an artificial elephant. In April, 1954, the answer came: India was willing to send an elephant! Their choise was a year-old bull, born January 23, 1953 on an elephant farm in the forests of Wynad in Malabar (India).
On November 24, 1954: the port of Amsterdam was filled with children and their parents to welcome the little elephant. After sailing the across the seas on the MS Poelau Laut, spoiled by the crew, the baby elephant walked to the zoo surrounded by a huge crowd. This was the start of a legend.
As usual in these days, Murugan was trained for rides. Shortly after his arrival, he walked with sandbags on his back through the zoo. Sometimes the keepers took him outside the park, and it was during these walks that Murugan become famous, or more accurately, notorious. The elephant liked to steel everything he saw. On the pavements, the public had to hide the sugar and coffee cups and of course, no grocery was safe from his trunk.
At the zoo his favorite game was to spray the public with water. There was a fruitstall in front of his enclosure where people could buy fruit for the animals. When Murugan got nothing he blew sand at the stall.
Every day, Murugan took the children on rides, but after a few years he began to demolish all kind of things during the walks. Sometimes he refused to go back to the elephant house. The zoo decided to discontinue the rides, and with changing ways of keeping elephants, Murugan was confined to his enclosure.
The keepers attempted to discover why Murugan couldn't mate. They decided that it wasn't a physical problem: he just did't know how to do it! In the wild young bulls learn from the older elephants how to mate by simply watching them. Murugan was a baby when he arrived in Amsterdam and he never saw elephant matings.
After a great deal of training, the keepers managed to get Murugan to walk into a crush, which is a special cage where the keepers can get sperm from the elephant. Unfortunately, Murugan died before the crush could be used.
The crush (lightgrey)One of Murugan's hobbies was to dig in his outside enclosure. In April, 1984, one of his two-metre-long tusks broke off. The vet had to saw off the remainder and now Murugan had one long and one very short one. But this didn't stop his digging. Once he dug up a sewer and began to blow and trumpet into this pipe, scaring the public elsewhere in the park. They thought there was an escaped animal in the sewers! The management decided to make a concrete floor with a thick layer of sand on it.
Murugan's 50th birthday was celebrated with a number of festivities, but he was already seriously ill. Diabetes, probable heart complaints, and pain with blood in his faeces combined to cause the management to make the ultimate decision: euthanasia. The zoo management didn't want to have an emotional reaction from the public and wanted to do it secretely, but the keepers put a stop to those plans. They said that everyone must be able to say goodbye to Murugan, including the other elephants. And so it happened. For elephants, death is also a part of life, elephants do mourn!
On June 4, 2003, Murugan was released from his suffering.
Murugan in 1971
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Female, born April 1971 in Thailand.
The Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) gave Jumbo to H.R.H. Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands on June 15, 1971. The elephant was destined for the renovated elephant house. A committee was installed to collect money for the renovation for the 60th birthday of the prince. According to documents, Jumbo was five months old, but the veternarian saw that the baby was actually only two months old. Because such young elephants were not allowed to be shipped, the handler falsified the age.
Suddenly Artis had a very young baby elephant on his hands, and a struggle to keep her alive began. The keepers tried many compounds of liquid food. Finally they found a succesful one, and the baby grew during the first 20 weeks from small 110 kilograms to normal 270 kilograms.
Jumbo was temporarily housed in the old hippo residence next to the elephant house. Gradually, Jumbo began to meet the other elephants. She walked with the keepers when the fed the herd, and Jumbo got used to the older elephants.
Usually, Jumbo played alone in the old hippo enclosure. The pond was her favorite spot and she loved to climb on treetrunks.
More info to come...
On October 2004 Jumbo moved, together with Suseela to the zoo of Ostrawa in the Czech Republic.