Witnesses Say Elephant Was Striking Back

Eyewitnesses to a violent elephant attack on a San Diego Wild Animal Park trainer said Wednesday that the incident was provoked by a beating the keeper administered to the animal just before the assault.

Two Escondido women, who said they saw the Tuesday attack on keeper David SaoMarcos, came to the defense of Cindy, a 26-year-old pachyderm, saying that SaoMarcos had been beating the elephant before she turned on him and that the elephant could easily have killed him.

Park spokeswoman Martha Baker called a news conference Wednesday afternoon to clarify details of the elephant’s attack on SaoMarcos, 21, who suffered a broken collarbone and many cuts and bruises. The park had reported Tuesday that the attack on SaoMarcos was unprovoked and that the keeper was nowhere near the elephant when it began.

Talked With Trainer

However, Baker said Wednesday that she had talked with SaoMarcos, who is in satisfactory condition in Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, and with Anna Devine, a visitor to the park who saw the incident Tuesday morning.

“There was more involved in the fracas between Cindy and David than we had been led to believe,” Baker said.

Baker also reported that Cindy attempted to attack another keeper Wednesday. The incident caused no harm to the keeper, Bob Potvin, because the elephant turned its wrath on the man’s wheelbarrow, crushing it, according to Baker.

The confrontation a day earlier between SaoMarcos and Cindy began about 8:30 a.m. when he approached the 8,000-pound elephant in the barn where the elephants are kept, chained by one leg, overnight, Baker said.

Cindy first tried to attack SaoMarcos in the barn, Baker said, and the keeper moved behind another more docile elephant. Cindy then became aggressive and “banged into another elephant” in an attempt to get at SaoMarcos.

Rapped on Rump

The confrontation continued later when Cindy was in the yard and SaoMarcos was nearby, cleaning up the compound. As was the practice when working around the rambunctious Cindy, SaoMarcos had brought another, docile elephant, Nita, to act as a shield, Baker explained.

When Cindy moved too close to where Nita stood, the keeper rapped Cindy several times on the rump to move her away, Baker said. Then Cindy snatched SaoMarcos’ bull hook, tossed it away and came after the defenseless man as he fled toward a gate to an equipment storage area, Baker said.

Baker said that SaoMarcos was injured when he was attempting to secure the gate and the elephant charged full force into it, bowling him over. Cindy then entered the service yard and used her trunk and head to roll SaoMarcos over and over on a concrete pad. The keeper escaped when the elephant backed off, perhaps distracted when another elephant entered the storage yard, Baker said.

In the latest incident, keeper Bob Potvin was cleaning the elephant compound Wednesday, using Nita, a dominant but docile elephant, as a bodyguard when Cindy approached him.

“They played ring-around-the-rosie around Nita for a while, and then Cindy gave up and turned on Bob’s (Potvin’s) wheelbarrow and crushed it,” Baker said. Potvin was uninjured and used his hand-held radio to summon help.

After Wednesday’s incident, Baker said, Cindy was placed in a separate compound with the park’s lone bull elephant. She will be kept there until she is sent to the Syracuse, N.Y., zoo. The Syracuse Zoo curator is aware of Cindy’s long record of misbehavior and is still willing to take her, Baker said Wednesday.

Eyewitnesses’ Account

Arthur Devine recounted the Tuesday incident, which his wife, who is hearing-impaired, and a friend, Sunny Angel, witnessed.

“I was about to cancel my membership (in the San Diego Zoological Society, which operates the Wild Animal Park and the San Diego Zoo) when my wife told me about the incident, and it wasn’t at all like what I read in the newspaper,” Devine said. “I think someone should stand up for the elephant.”

The two women saw SaoMarcos “beating the elephant with a gaff,” Devine said. “Then the animal reached out with its trunk and snatched the gaff out of the man’s hands and threw it a tremendous distance away into the trees.

“That elephant could have attacked the man, but it didn’t. It just took away the gaff the man had been using to beat it,” Devine said. “My wife and her friend were the only ones around. There were no other witnesses.”

Devine said his wife’s description of what happened next was similar to that of park authorities: SaoMarcos ran for the protection of the fenced storage yard and Cindy followed, crashing into the gate, which knocked SaoMarcos to the cement, “probably causing his shoulder injury.”

“That elephant could have killed that man then, but it didn’t. It backed off and let him get away,” Devine said.

“But what disturbed me the most was that, after my wife and her friend had summoned help, they were told to leave the area,” Devine said. “No one even took their names so that they could tell later what had happened.

“Why would they be ordered to leave the area? They were safe behind the fence. The only reason I can think of was to get them out of there, so that they wouldn’t witness the animal being punished.”

Baker said that Cindy was not punished after either the Tuesday or the Wednesday attack “because it would not have done any good.” An elephant must be disciplined at the instant of the attack, “or she would not be able to make the connection between her acts and the punishment,” Baker said.