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Animals Formally Arrested / Prosecuted / Executed For Crimes

George_millett said:
Not sure about vets in Zoos but Millitary elephants where killed by a very big spike being driven into the base of the shull by the Mahout (animals keeper) at the first sign of the animal going wild just to make sure it does not do to much damage to its own side.
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What military elephants were those George? Hannibal's?
 
OldTimeRadio said:
I'm NOT in favor of killing elephants for ANY reason. Maybe the guys who so mistreated this female elephant as to turn it into a killer should have been the ones punished.
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It would have been nice to read that the people who had driven her to madness were all painfully punished (being trained to 'sit' by being hit in the backs of the legs with a sharp hooked stick perhaps), while Mary went to be released into a reserve somewhere and find a nice bull to keep her company. No more stupid tricks, screeching children or inhumane confinement!
Am reminded of the Simpsons episode with Stampy the elephant though, where he was released into a reserve and immediately started headbutting another elephant... "Like people, some elephants are just jerks" :)
 
TJ_Honeysuckle said:
George_millett said:
Not sure about vets in Zoos but Millitary elephants where killed by a very big spike being driven into the base of the shull by the Mahout (animals keeper) at the first sign of the animal going wild just to make sure it does not do to much damage to its own side.
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What military elephants were those George? Hannibal's?
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Indian as afar as I am aware. I don't beleive that Hannibal had any means of quickly destroying his own elephants as their are apocryphal stories of the Romans setting live pigs alight and sending them into Elephant formations which very quickly resulted in a stampede. Where as the Indians with there greater knowledge and respect for the animals had safefguards in place to prevent that from happening.
 
George_millett said:
their are apocryphal stories of the Romans setting live pigs alight and sending them into Elephant formations which very quickly resulted in a stampede.
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They had this on QI which I believe have many little elves checking on the veracity of every fact mentioned in the show, so as not to embarrass The Great Mr Stephen Fry by having him unwittingly speak untruths. So it appears to be true unless the elves are wrong.
 
kirmildew said:
....while Mary went to be released into a reserve somewhere and find a nice bull to keep her company....
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I'm by no means certain that I'd feel comfortable with an insane killer elephant kept on a "reservation" anywhere nearby.

And it's likely that that bull elephant wouln't feel safe either.
 
TJ_Honeysuckle said:
Not sure where to put this, general may have to do.
Yesterday I got an email with a correspondent friend of mine with this image attached:
mary.jpg
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Just a point, but that image looks for all the world like the fake "old photograph" rendering that the GIMP free software photoshop mimic can produce; similarly the elephant doesn't look quite right, somehow, for such a beast suspended by a noose.

My guess is that this is fake.
 
dan_uid0 said:
Just a point, but that image looks for all the world like the fake "old photograph" rendering that the GIMP free software photoshop mimic can produce; similarly the elephant doesn't look quite right, somehow, for such a beast suspended by a noose.

My guess is that this is fake.
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As I mentioned earlier this picture was published in the late 70s in a book which I still have somewhere - Way before most of us had PCs, let alone with graphical interfaces and sophisticated photo software that we take for granted these days.
If the original photo itself was faked it would have had to be done the old fashioned way. It wasn't done on computer,

and how do you know what a suspended elephant should look like? How many other hung lelephants have you seen?

-
 
I can also vouch for seeing the image in pre-PC days. (If the word of any random person on an intarweb forum is of any creedence.) But I'm to lazy to track down any references on the matter.

BUT I quite understand how such a matter could be a prime subject faking or artistry, particularly if no suitable image was readily available. I think the best bet, for those interested enough, would be to track down the newspaper or a local history of Erwin, TN book that would have the picture. Verifying it's authenticity beyond that would seem to me to be nearly impossible. If you're really lucky, you might be able to dig up the name of the photographer.

There does seem to be some writing directly on the photo that may help trace the picture's provenance. It's not very legible in the versions I've seen.
 
As I mentioned earlier in the thread (I'm from the Erwin TN area...) the obviously-retouched version of the photo (apparently taken from a newspaper) is - so I was told - the only surviving version of the photo ....
 
OldTimeRadio said:
kirmildew said:
....while Mary went to be released into a reserve somewhere and find a nice bull to keep her company....
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I'm by no means certain that I'd feel comfortable with an insane killer elephant kept on a "reservation" anywhere nearby.

And it's likely that that bull elephant wouln't feel safe either.
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On reading the articles again, I would not class that poor creature as an insane killer, rather just a bored, sick or scared elephant who killed the man with the stick who was in charge of her. Who can say what really happened? It sounds like she was killed just to rake in some money for the circus.
Besides which, if the execution accounts are true, they broke her foot and smashed her hip whilst bungling her death. Most humane method? Poor bloody thing!!
 
Ah.....is it more or less inhumane than the previous method of firing 250 bullets into the elephant?
 
Is it possible to give an elephant a lethal injection? Perhaps with the syringe used in The Amazing Colossal Man?
 
gncxx said:
Is it possible to give an elephant a lethal injection? Perhaps with the syringe used in The Amazing Colossal Man?
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Poor Tusko (died after a colossal dose of LSD, but the mechanism is in dispute)

from The Guardian:
While the experiment is quoted as evidence of LSD's toxicity, it seems most likely that the Thorazine or the combination of drugs killed Tusko, not the acid. Lending credence to this, in 1984 psychologist Ronald K Siegel repeated the experiment with two elephants, using LSD only. Both survived.
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[edit:](merged posts)

And while I'm at it, poor Topsy
That Edison was a real asshole.
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Wow, seems people aren't very empathic about elephants.
 
gncxx said:
Is it possible to give an elephant a lethal injection? Perhaps with the syringe used in The Amazing Colossal Man?
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The elephant electrocuted in 1903 had previously been fed carrots soaked in cyanide. It....did....not....work.
 
Philo_T said:
That Edison was a real asshole.
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If I were you I'd go back to candles and rush-lights and never use an incandescent bulb again. THAT"LL show him! <g>
 
Philo_T said:
gncxx said:
Wow, seems people aren't very empathic about elephants.
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Hey, wait just a minute, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

I'm extremely fond of elephants and regard them as very nearly human in intelligence. They have individual self-identies, family relationships, emotions and language (though that language is too low-pitched for human ears to even register).

But the question ISN'T whether we like or dislike elephants. It is, rather, how do you HUMANELY neutralize a two-ton mobile killing machine?
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Philo_T said:
Wow, seems people aren't very empathic about elephants.
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Hey, wait just a minute, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

I'm extremely fond of elephants and regard them as very nearly human in intelligence. They have individual self-identies, family relationships, emotions and language (though that language is too low-pitched for human ears to even register).

But the question ISN'T whether we like or dislike elephants. It is, rather, how do you HUMANELY neutralize a two-ton mobile killing machine?
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Ok, so I was overgeneralizing about people in aggregate. But I think you have a couple of factors in play here. First, people's attitudes towards treatment of animals was different back then. Second, some persons would have a perverse impulse to torment the restrained titan -- then take affront when said beast uses its strength to indicate its displeasure.
Obviously, such a scenario would be exaggerated in a case involving an elephant, as opposed, say, to a trained seal.
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
We'd just use Swan's incandescent lighting, instead.
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If you'd prefer to use 1881-style carbon-filament light bulbs, be my guest. <g>
 
looks like elephant executions still take place, after a fashion... very sad but under the circumstances, difficult to see what else they could have done :(

India's killer elephant shot dead

A killer elephant, named after al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, has been shot dead in India's Assam state.

Laden was tracked down by professional elephant hunters after a shoot-to-kill order was issued following the death of a woman on Wednesday.

The rogue bull has trampled 14 people to death in the past six months in the north-eastern state, officials say.

Humans and elephants have come into greater conflict in recent years as man encroaches on jungle territories.

Villagers played drums and brandished flames to scare Laden into a corner of a tea estate after he was spotted there, Assam wildlife wardens told the BBC.

"As the villagers did their bit to scare the rogue tusker, our forest guards kept firing in the air to drive Laden towards the trap hunter Dwipen Phukan had set for it.

"But it was no easy kill because once in sight of Phukan, the elephant charged furiously," said wildlife chief MC Malakar.

Mr Phukan, a licensed hunter, said: "It was charging towards me and I kept firing. Another few yards and it would have run over me."

Laden was branded a "rogue" - a violent, isolated elephant - in the summer after the deaths reached double figures.

He was given his name by villagers in Assam's eastern district of Sonitpur.

Assam sits on the corridor used by Siamese elephants, a corridor that stretches from northern Thailand to the foothills of Bhutan.

A similar rogue elephant killed 12 people in a day in 1992 in the same district of Sonitpur.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6183961.stm
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
....under the circumstances, difficult to see what else they could have done :(
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Indeed, after 14 human victims.

I suppose it could be argued that the real villains here are "men encroach[ing] on jungle territories," but that's what humans do and there's not the slightest reason to believe we're going to stop.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
I suppose it could be argued that the real villains here are "men encroach[ing] on jungle territories," but that's what humans do and there's not the slightest reason to believe we're going to stop.
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Try explaining that to the elephant. Incidentally, I read in the paper conservationists believe the wrong elephant was shot the other day.
 
gncxx said:
Try explaining that to the elephant.
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Hey, I didn't say it was right, but how things are, and likely going to remain.

Incidentally, I read in the paper conservationists believe the wrong elephant was shot the other day.
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oops
 
Jerusalem rabbis 'condemn dog to death by stoning'

A Jewish rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a stray dog it feared was the reincarnation of a lawyer who insulted its judges, reports say.
The dog entered the Jerusalem financial court several weeks ago and would not leave, reports Israeli website Ynet.
It reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer about 20 years ago, when judges bid his spirit to enter the body of a dog.

The animal is said to have escaped before the sentence was carried out.

One of the judges at the court in the city's ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood had reportedly asked local children to carry out the sentence.
An animal welfare organisation filed a complaint with the police against a court official, who denied reports that judges had ordered the dog's stoning, according to Ynet.

But a court manager told Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot the stoning had been ordered as "as an appropriate way to 'get back at' the spirit which entered the poor dog", according to Ynet.
Dogs are considered impure animals in traditional Judaism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13819764
 
Jerusalem court denies dog condemned to stoning

Reports that a Jewish rabbinical court in Israel condemned a stray dog to death by stoning have been strongly denied.


The source of the report, Israel's Maariv newspaper, apologised for its headline and for any offence caused.
The head of the court, Yehoshua Levin, was quoted by Maariv as saying: "There is no basis for abuse of animals from the side of Jewish Halacha [law].''
In a statement, the court denied that a dog had been condemned.
A dog had entered the court and been removed, it said.
The story was reported in the Israeli and international press, including the BBC News website.
The original reports said that the dog entered the Jerusalem financial court several weeks ago and would not leave.
It was reported that the dog reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer about 20 years ago, when judges bid his spirit to enter the body of a dog. The animal was said to have escaped before the sentence was carried out.
An animal welfare organisation filed a complaint with the police against a court official.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13838347
 
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This 2014 WIRED article provides an overview of animal trials and punishments in Europe.
FANTASTICALLY WRONG: EUROPE'S INSANE HISTORY OF PUTTING ANIMALS ON TRIAL AND EXECUTING THEM

ON SEPTEMBER 5, 1379, two herds of pigs at a French monastery grew agitated and killed a man named Perrinot Muet. As was custom at the time, the pigs—the actual murderers and those that had simply looked on—were tried for their horrible crime, and sentenced to death. You see, with their “cries and aggressive actions,” the onlookers “showed that they approved of the assault,” and mustn’t be allowed to escape justice.

But the monastery’s prior, Friar Humbert de Poutiers, couldn’t bear to suffer the economic loss of all those pigs. So he wrote to the Duke of Burgundy, pleading for him to pardon the onlookers (the friar would allow the three murderers to suffer their fate—he was no scofflaw, after all). The duke “lent a gracious ear to his supplication and ordered that the punishment should be remitted and the swine released.” Records don’t show just how the three pigs were executed, though it was common for offending animals to be hanged or burned alive for their crimes.

Such is Europe’s shameful and largely forgotten history of putting animal "criminals" on trial and either executing them or, for plagues of insects, ordering them to leave town not only by a certain day, but by an exact time. Such irrational barbarism is hard to fathom, but as early as 824 all the way up to the middle of the 18th century, animals were held to the same moral standards as humans, suffering the same capital punishments and even rotting in the same jails. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.wired.com/2014/09/fanta...sane-history-putting-animals-trial-executing/
 
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NOTE: The 'Mary the Hanged Elephant' thread has been merged into this one.
 
Bumping this awful tale with this link to the altered dimensions site.

The links above are dead. At least the first one gets a Page Not Found message and the second may just be refusing to cooperate with Safari.

The new linked article contains disturbing images and descriptions. The story appears to be authentic and revolting. For some reason, it is much less well-known than the electrocuted elephant of a year earlier. :(
 
I don't know why the separate Mary thread still existed after the merger some months ago. Maybe it was a duplicate.

Anyway ... The latest post has been transferred to this merged thread.

JamesWhitehead: The story is indeed authentic. I'm from the area where this occurred, and it's well documented.

SIDE NOTE: The Altered Dimensions site mistakenly labels the execution site town as Ervin, Tennessee. It is, and has always been, Erwin.
 
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