The Death of Stoney the Elephant
Stoney, a Las Vegas performing elephant owned by Mike LaTorres, is one of the saddest and most terrible examples of abuse and neglect.
During practice one day, Stoney (who performed at the Luxor Casino in a magic act) was practicing a trick where he stood on his hind legs. He couldn't get it right and in frustration LaTorres made him perform it again and again before the performance. During this practice, while Stoney was on his back legs, his hamstring exploded with an audible crack.
The screaming elephant was dragged from backstage, placed in a dumpster, and moved to a steel storage shed where he was held immobile in a device known as a "crush" so the doctor could look at him. Prognosis was negative and Stoney was kept in that steel device for eleven months on casino property before he died while trying to stand up in a botched attempt to move him to an allegedly disreputable elephant breeding farm.
Almost a year passed and the elephant was kept in his own feces, unable to move and watered by a hosepipe being shoved in his mouth a few times a day. And the story ends even more disturbingly. The animal advocate Linda Faso, who knew Stoney, talked to one of the crane operators who removed Stoney's body from the shed in the back of the casino. He says:
It's a funny thing," one of them said, "After the elephant fell, he was lying on the ground sort of groaning in pain. Then the trainer walked through the door and that elephant started chirping and calling to him; then he reached out his trunk to the guy like he wanted to touch him. The guy said 'cut it out Stoney' and sort of pushed the trunk away. Then the elephant kind of sighed and then he died.
Sadly enough, Stoney is but one example of why pop culture should immediately reject the anachronistic tradition of using elephants in entertainment.
