Canadian Zoos

African Lion Safari - Ontario

The African Lion Safari (ALS) is a privately owned facility located near Hamilton, Ontario and is accredited by CAZA.

The following inventory is based on the Asian Elephant Studbook printed in 2000. Since there is no government requirement in Canada for reporting elephant births and deaths, the inventory information is not current. Calves not listed were seen at the facility, and since the elephants are not all on display at this facility, it is not possible to accurately list all elephants at this facility.

According to the Asian Elephant studbook printed in 2000, 13 elephants were listed in this zoo:

• Kitty - female captured in Thailand estimated year of birth (EYB) 1965
• Jenny - female, captured in Thailand, EYB 1967
• Rex - male captured in Kamataka, EYB 1968
• Dame - female, wild-caught (no country listed), EYB 1970
• Mugwamp (a.k.a Maggy) - female, captured in Burma, EYB 1968
• Phoebe - female, captive bred in Israel, year of birth (YB) 1987, no longer at ALS, unsure if died or traded)
• Natasha - female, born at ALS 1994
• Piccolo - female, born at ALS in 1994
• Samson - male, born at ALS in 1998
• Albert - male, born at ALS in 1998, no longer at the facility, possibly dead or traded
• George - male, born at ALS in 1999
• Johnson - male, born at ALS in 2001
• Lily - female, born in Israel in 1985

The following elephants are marked as having died in the studbook:

• Beau Thai - male, born at Houston Zoo in 1984, died at ALS in 1988
• Gina - female, captured in Thailand, EYB 1958, died in 1986
• Unnamed baby - born at ALS in 1993, died shortly after birth

I visited this facility on the 15th of September, 2006. A group of elephants, three adults and four calves of different ages, were on display in the outdoor enclosure. The enclosure substrate was largely dirt with small patches of grass. There were no large trees or pools of water in this enclosure. A mother and her young calf stood in one corner of the enclosure with the mother stopping frequently for the calf to feed. Another of the young calves wandered around among the adults and appeared not to have a close bond with any of the females on display. This calf made half hearted attempts to feed on hay that was placed in small piles on the ground. The calf was then observed trying to suckle from the breast feeding mother but was gently pushed away. In the same group was another female that seemed to be lactating but she seemed to show no interest in this wandering calf. The two older calves did not seem to take much interest in each other either. This was probably a group of unrelated elephants with the exception of the mother and calf.

An elephant show, dubbed “The Elephant Round Up,” was the highlight event of the day at the zoo. Many families and their young children gathered in an arena to watch the show. Led by two guides each with a bull hook in hand, three adult Asian elephants and a young calf sprinted into the arena. The elephants held each other by the tail.

They got to the middle of the arena and after the ‘safari salute’, a manipulated behavior consisted of the elephant’s raising one front leg up and waving his trunk, the commentator introduced the elephants as Lily with baby Logan, Dame and Maggy. After the introduction, an elephant pulled a log around the enclosure. Lily was then made to push the log back, with her calf running wildly alongside. Next, Maggy picked up a coin from the palm of a spectator’s hand and after that lifted one of the trainers up with her trunk. The woman commentator then climbed onto Maggie’s back and Maggie ‘helped’ her to climb down by raising her foot. The elephants were then made to lie down on their sides. The show went on with a number of other sequences, including drumbeating, painting and even a headstand. All the while, the young calf ran frantically after the mother as she performed. The men with the bull hooks were giving commands and walking around looking tense and stiff throughout the show. I believe the bullhook was seen as a threat by the elephants. The presence of the calf was truly baffling. In the wild, elephant mothers are very protective of their young. Here was this mother, forced to go through this humiliating routine of circus style tricks and meanwhile her calf ran along, seemingly totally bewildered all through the show.

The audience was informed during the show that 11 baby elephants have been born in this facility since 1991. Three of them were born in the last year, including the calf that was in the arena during the show. This calf, Logan, was born in April, 2006, together with another named Emily. The third calf was born in November of 2005. These were the two calves on display in the elephant enclosure. Emily was the calf who did not seem to have a mother in the group. This zoo certainly has a large breeding programme. Being a private facility, ALS is not subject to Freedom of Information laws and so it is difficult for interested parties to keep track of the breeding program or records of elephant movements in and out of the zoo.

After the main show, the crowd surged forward and many wanted to touch the elephants. The crowd was very noisy and the guides were visibly nervous. The guard rail separating the people and the elephants was not adequate to contain elephants and one could easily envisage an elephant breaking through and trampling this group of enthusiastic families and their children. The audience seemed totally oblivious of this possibility, despite reports in the media revealing that indeed the African Lion Safari facility has had their fair share of incidents:

In 1992, The Toronto Sun reported that a 14 year old boy was injured when he was stepped on by an elephant named Tara. The kid was apparently leading the elephant through the zoo at the time.

In 1989, the Globe and the Mail and other media reported that a 21 year old elephant trainer at ALS was crushed to death by Tusko a bull elephant.

In this same facility, two young people were attacked when driving through the tiger enclosure and suffered serious injuries.

After the ‘Elephant Round Up’ groups of parents eagerly waited in line to pay for elephant rides for their young children. Information about this facility reveals that the elephants are regularly used in films, commercials, parades, circuses and private parties.

African Lion Safari reportedly has the biggest elephant breeding program in Canada as part of the Species Survival Plan (SSP). This SSPs were developed to create self-sustaining captive populations of particular animals, not for the purpose of returning animals to the wild, The elephant SSP’s have no plan to return animals to the wild so they have little real conservation value, if any, to wild elephant populations. Furthermore, the circus style elephant show provides little, if any, positive education and in fact may result in negative education about normal elephant behavior.