The elephants of Tilburg Zoo
Summary of the elephants of Tilburg. The list is not complete
Isah
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus, subspecies sumatrensis?)
Female, born at Sumatara? Died in 1945 ?
Isah probably was a war elephant of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (K.N.I.L.) Fact is that she walked in 1933 with a military mahoud 500 kilometers through the forests of Atjeh (Sumatra) to a harbor were she was shipped to Holland.
She was a gift from the Dutch East Indies Government to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem.
In Arnhem Isah stood together with the young bull Willy. But both elephants hated each other. Therefore Isah was brought only one month after her arrival in Arnhem to Tilburg.
After the liberation of the southern parts of The Netherlands in 1944 there was a lack of anything: food, fuel, etc. During the very cold winter of February/March 1945 many animals died of the cold or malnutrition. It seems that Isah was one of them.
The photo on the left shows an unknown elephant on an undated postcard.
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Female, born in India (?)
In 1950 Aida arrived together with her mahoud at the railway station of Tilburg. From there she walked to the zoo, and attracted a great deal of attention of course.
She lived until the mid-fifties in the zoo. What happened to her is unknown. Fact is that she was not present at the time that Sonja left the zoo in 1958.
On the photo on the right: Aida with her mahoud and zoo director Christ van Dijk.
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Female, born in 1946 in Colombo (Sri Lanka), died July 31, 1999.
Sonja arrived in the park somewhere in the mid-fifties. After Aida left the zoo Sonja stood alone for some years. Het exhibit was not large, and Sonja was still growing. At one point she hardly couldn't walk through the door between her stables and the outside enclosure. The staff decided to buy some young elephants and to replace Sonja.
On August 28, 1958 Sonja went to Warsaw. She was put into a custom made crate. On a lorry she was taken to the port of Rotterdam. There she was loaded into the Polish sea vessel 'Puck'. With a short stop in Hamburg the ship arrived on September 1, the Polish harbor of Gdynia. From there she was shipped on a special train car, and transported to the city of Warsaw. Sonja finally arrived on September 3, at noon, a the zoo of Warsaw.
At the zoo she met another 'Dutch' elephant: bull Rayah, who came from Rotterdam Zoo. Altough both lived in Warsaw Zoo until the end of the 90s, they never got any offspring.
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Male (?)
Bonzo came as a young elephant to Tilburg. Not much is known about him (her?)
Fortunately there is a photo of Bonzo with keeper Gerard Reyns
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Female, born in 1965 in Bangkok (Thailand)
Bonzo shortly got some company with the arrival of Tessa in 1966. But Tessa was predestined for the zoo in Emmen. On May 20 she was shipped to Emmen Zoo. In Emmen she was renamed Annabel, and she still lives there.
Read more about her: Annabel
On the photo on the left: Tessa / Annabel in Tilburg.
Kwimba
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Female, born May 10, 1961 in Budapest.
Kwimba arrived on June 21, 1965 at Tilburg Zoo, and moved to Burgers Zoo in Arnhem on January 16, 1966. From there she moved on March 10, 1998 to Pont Scorff in France where she died on June 12, 2005
Raja
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Female, born in 1963 in the wild.
She arrived in September 1967 at Tilburg Zoo, and moved on October 5, 1967 to Ouwehands Zoo in Rhenen. From there she moved on April 27, 1989 to Rotterdam Zoo, and from there to Porto Christo on Mallorca on March 5, 1997, where she still lives.
