Giving away an elephant is as tough as it seems!

By Jeff Long
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 5, 2007

A year after mistreatment allegations prompted a great elephant exodus from McHenry County, two of the pachyderms, Nicholas and Gypsy, remain at a controversial circus training farm without good prospects for a new home.

They were left behind when eight other Asian elephants were moved last January and February from a farm near Richmond to an elephant sanctuary in the rolling hills of Tennessee. It was a 650-mile journey that began after federal investigators accused Hawthorn Corp., the farm's owner, of mistreating the animals.

The eight female elephants have since been nicknamed "The Divas" by their new caretakers, who say they are soaking up sunshine and frolicking in ponds.

"They're grand, they're worldly," said Carol Buckley, co-founder and executive director of the Elephant Sanctuary near Hohenwald, Tenn. "They're just divas. The name fit and it stuck. They're really taking advantage of their freedom in every way."

But Nicholas and Gypsy are waiting for their golden parachute. Hawthorn is still under agreement with the government to find new homes for them, and the company says that keeping them is prohibitively expensive.

(MORE)