TORTURED GIANT
The tragic true story of real Dumbo – the alcoholic and abused elephant forced to eat gold coins and killed by a train
HE was the animal superstar who drew crowds in their millions and inspired Disney favourite Dumbo.
An instant hit when he arrived at London Zoo in 1865, Jumbo the African elephant could count Queen Victoria and her children among his many fans.
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But the adoring public had no idea that their gentle giant was forced to eat coins thrown at him, doped with alcohol and, as a baby, saw his mother hacked to death before his eyes.
Jumbo's tragic true story is so much more heartbreaking than the new trailer for the live action Dumbo film, directed by Tim Burton and set for release in March 2019, suggests.
Seeing the cute CGI baby elephant, you would never guess that in real life Jumbo was so aggressive that he had to be sold to PT Barnum’s travelling circus in the US.
Like Disney’s Dumbo, whose real name in the film is Jumbo, he quickly became the star attraction — until he was hit by a train and his life was cut short.
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Knocking back bottles of bubbles and whisky
Jumbo was captured by hunters in Eritrea and separated from his mother, who was slaughtered for her tusks and her hide as her cub looked on.
Alone, confused and confined to a cage in Regent Street's newly established zoological gardens, orphaned Jumbo would grind his tusks down against the bars of his prison.
In PT Barnum's circus, poor Jumbo would be sedated with vast amounts of alcohol, knocking back bottles of champagne, port and whisky. His favourite food was biscuits soaked in spirits.
On Jumbo's journey from London to the US, he needed a daily allotment of whisky to keep him calm.
He also used to eat anything thrown at him by visitors, including children's toys and coins - hundreds of which were found in his stomach after he died.
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Last year, Sir David Attenborough investigated the life of the elephant claimed to be the largest to have ever lived in a BBC1 documentary.
Sir David said: “I’m going to look beyond Jumbo’s celebrity for the real elephant behind the myths.
“How big was he in reality? And what is the truth behind the mysteries that surround his tragic death?”
Sir David and his team were given unique access to Jumbo’s remains at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, shedding light on the unforgettable true story behind an amazing elephant.
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A life of agony
When the team analysed Jumbo’s bones, it discovered evidence of how his life in captivity damaged him physically.
After finding an unusual layering of old and new bone in his hip, Dr Richard Thomas, from the University of Leicester, said: “He has many signs of stress and strain-related injuries.
“They must have been incredibly painful for him but may have reflected the use to which he was put.”
Often pictured giving rides to visitors at the zoo, it seems Jumbo may have been harmed by the ones who loved him most.
And Jumbo had more than just a damaged hip.
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Dr Thomas added: “When we look at the knee we see all sorts of kind of changes in the bone that we wouldn’t really expect to see in an elephant his age. Remember Jumbo’s only 24 and still growing.”
So Jumbo could have suffered from painful joint problems more associated with old age.
Sir David concluded: “His bones are more like an elephant in its 40s or 50s.”
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A gentle giant with a tragic past
PT Barnum claimed Jumbo was the largest African elephant on the planet, standing at around 13ft.
But by analysing his leg bone, the team discovered he was around 10ft 6in at the time of his death.
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A typical wild African elephant of the same age measures around 8ft 8in.
However, a crack in Jumbo’s leg bone reveals that he was still growing when he died.
Fans go wild for 'fit' David Attenborough in throwback BBC footage
Dr Thomas said: “Male African elephants continue to grow until they are 40 so Jumbo had another 16 years of getting bigger.”
He may not have been as tall as Barnum claimed, but according to Sir David: “He could have matched that claim had he lived.”
Terrifying rages when darkness fell
Jumbo’s calm nature during the day was in contrast to his behaviour at night.
Sir David said: “He would become possessed by terrifyingly violent rages in which he would smash the timbers of his enclosure.”
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Jumbo was also prone to hurting himself in his confusion, even breaking off both tusks on one occasion. When they grew back, he ground them down against the stonework of his enclosure.
His keeper, Matthew Scott, is said to have given him whisky to try to calm him down.
The zoo’s superintendent, Abraham Bartlett, was convinced Jumbo was suffering from musth, a natural condition affecting young male elephants when they become sexually mature. It can cause them to become extremely aggressive.
But Dr Vicki Fishlock, a researcher in Kenya, disagrees.
She argues that musth would have caused Jumbo to be violent towards his keepers, too.
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And as Sir David pointed out: “There is nothing in the historical records that Jumbo was ever violent towards people.”
A new clue emerged when the team found evidence of malformed teeth when studying Jumbo’s skull.
Dr Thomas said: “We can think of elephant teeth a bit like conveyor belts. They have six teeth but only one will be in wear on each side at any one time.
“Another one will be coming in underneath to replace it at the time which that tooth falls out.”
If a tooth does not wear down enough, it will not fall out and will block the new tooth, bending it out of shape. This would lead to terrible toothache.”
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And Professor John Hutchinson, from the Royal Veterinary College, believes his toothache could have been made worse by the sticky buns pushed through his bars by visitors to the zoo.”
Sir David said: “Anyone who’s had toothache knows that it seems worse at night when you have no distractions, so maybe this is one of the explanations for Jumbo’s terrifying nocturnal rages.”
Dr Holly Miller, from the University of Nottingham, took samples from Jumbo’s femur and rib bones to discover more about the food he was eating.
She said: “We’re definitely seeing some suggestion that he’s not getting the variety of diet that other elephants should.”
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In the wild, African elephants have a varied diet of grass, leaves, twigs and even bark. Dr Miller says the pathologies of Jumbo’s teeth show they were soft and coming through at the wrong angle because they were not being used in the right way.
“They’re not being used to grind down the right food."
Eating coins thrown through the bars
According to a report at the time, his stomach was filled with English pennies, whistles, keys and rivets.
It has been reported that Jumbo used to habitually eat coins which had been thrown into his enclosure - and the evidence supports this.
Jumbo’s stuffed body was then kept at Tufts University in Massachusetts but was lost in a fire.
Jumbo’s tail still remains, from which Dr Miller analysed hair to give a snapshot of his diet almost right before he died.
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It revealed a high amount of nitrogen, which suggests his body was under stress and was extracting as much nitrogen as possible from his diet to help repair it.
A horrific death on the train tracks
In September 1885, Barnum’s circus went to Canada to perform in St Thomas, Ontario. Written records show that Jumbo was suffering from a sort of wasting disease at this time.
After the show, Jumbo and a small elephant called Tom Thumb were being loaded on to the circus train when a freight train came hurtling towards them.
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Accounts of what happened next differ, with Barnum claiming Jumbo sacrificed his own life by running towards the train to save his friend Tom Thumb.
But Sir David found more clues on a visit to the Elgin County Museum in the town where Jumbo died.
Curator Mike Baker showed him a photo taken shortly after the collision, saying: “You can see abrasions on his hide which match very nicely with the one good graphic from soon after the collision.”
It shows the train coming up behind Jumbo, which would have caused the scrapes on his body.
entertainment
Examining the drawing, Sir David said: “That is the circus train with the box car that Jumbo was going to get into, and the locomotive would outrun him and hit him in the rear and that’s the end of poor Jumbo — not what Barnum said.”
And with no evidence of fractures on the skeleton, he concludes the most likely cause of death was internal bleeding - leading to a tragic end to a sad and short life.
Even after his death, Jumbo was not allowed to rest.
He was displayed in a gala in New York and paraded for four years as a roadside attraction.
Dumbo will be released in theatres in March 2019.
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