Melissa Crandall - Elephant Speak: A Devoted Keepers Life Among the Herd

ELEPHANT Speak

A Devoted Keepers Life Among the Herd

ELEPHANT Speak

A Devoted Keepers Life Among the Herd

MELISSA CRANDALL

The love between two species is not like the love within one.
Sallie Tisdale

2020 Melissa Crandall

ISBN 13: 978-1-947845-10-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Ooligan Press

Portland State University

Post Office Box 751, Portland, Oregon 97207

503.725.9748

ooligan@ooliganpress.pdx.edu

www.ooliganpress.pdx.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Crandall, Melissa, 1957 author.

Title: Elephant speak : a devoted keepers life among the herd / Melissa Crandall.

Description: First edition. | Portland : Ooligan Press, [2020] | Includes

bibliographical references. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2019039261 (print) | LCCN 2019039262 (ebook) | ISBN

9781947845107 (paperback) | ISBN 9781947845114 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Henneous, Roger. | Zoo keepers--Oregon--Biography. | Oregon

Zoo (Portland, Or.)

Cover design by Laura Mills and Jenny Kimura

Back cover photo provided by The Oregonian (1998)

Interior design by Denise Morales Soto

Printed in the United States of America

For Belle

Authors Note

Roger Henneous and I met in the spring of 1997, when I was a volunteer at the Washington Park Zoo (now the Oregon Zoo). His devotion to the elephants in his care, and their obvious love for him, affected me so profoundly that twenty years later I searched him out and asked to write his lifes story. Had I approached him any earlier with the request, he says he would have refused, but time had mellowed Roger and the opportunity to relive those days beckoned. Our weekly conversations took place from 2015 to 2018. This book contains his memories and reflections, supplemented by explanatory research.

Because the zoo in Portland, Oregon has gone by a variety of names since its inception in 1888, Ive used the current title Oregon Zoo throughout the book in order to minimize confusion.

Prologue

Thursday, March 20, 1997

The Oregon Zoo began to settle down as the last of the days visitors departed. The metal gates were swung closed and locked for the night. Staff completed their duties and prepared to head home. Nocturnal creatures stirred, ready to forage, while those who held to a daylight schedule bedded down and prepared to sleep. Animal keepers, those members of the zoo family most envied by visitors, took a final stroll through exhibits to ensure that each animal was safe and where it was meant to be, every latch secure, every door locked.

Inside the elephant barn, sixty-year-old Roger Henneous walked from room to room, boot soles almost silent against the concrete floor, his close-cut, graying beard and canny eyes shadowed by the water-stained brim of his trademark campaign hat. A veteran employee of nearly thirty years, most of them spent as senior keeper to the elephants, Roger knew every inch of the building, every sound and sigh made by the animals around which hed built his life. The smell of timothy hay, grain, and the dense, somewhat sweet musk of the elephants washed over him, a mlange of odors so familiar as to go unnoticed. Confident his crew had handled the afternoon chores, he nevertheless made an almost unconscious mental note of each elephant as he strolled past: the bulls Packy, Rama, and Hugo, each in his individual bachelors quarters; Pet and Hanako in their little herd; and Sung-Surin with the orphaned Rose-Tu sticking close, the teenage cow providing comfort to the two-and-a-half-year-old calf in the absence of their matriarch, Belle.

By day, the barns cavernous space echoed with the hum of immense hydraulic doors opening and closing; the scrape of shovels and rakes clearing away manure, old bedding, and leftover bits of forage made useless with urine; the tumble of grocery produce tipped from containers; the soft thud as hay bales were tossed to waiting elephants; the sound of water spraying from hoses; and beneath it all the voices of the keepers rising and falling by turns as they talked, laughed, griped, and cajoled. And, of course, there were the elephantssqueaking, squealing, rumbling, roaring, chirping, trumpeting, and barking. Even in sleep, they broke the nighttime silence with snores and farts.

Roger stepped into the keeper alley near his office and looked into what was colloquially known as the front room, a rectangular exhibit area with bars along two walls. A temporary barricade of linked chain had been strung across its width, dividing the almost 1,400 square foot space into a smaller convalescent ward for Belle.

She stood facing the back wall, seemingly unaware of his arrival. Her left front foot was wrapped in a thick bandage secured with gray duct tape, evidence of yesterdays surgery. It was a heartfelt attempt on the part of a gigantic crew of devoted helpers to halt the advance of severe pododermatitis, known in keeper parlance as foot rot.

Social by nature, elephants prefer the company of their own kind. Belle was in isolation to protect her during this crucial recovery period. If one of the more obstreperous cows were to challenge her for the matriarchy, Belle could be severely injured. It had happened before, in 1983Belle bested the upstart, but the elbow in her right front leg was damaged and shed never regained full use of the joint.

To see any of his elephants withdrawn and in pain caused Roger distress, but Belle was his personal favorite, his darling. They had a special connection, a bond forged by time and shared experience. So much of a keepers relationship with an animal was telepathic; they either clicked or they didnt. Each of the elephants in his barn had their favorite human, the one they would do anything for. Roger was that keeper for Belle.

Belle gained notoriety in 1962 when she gave birth to Packy, the first elephant born in the Western Hemisphere in forty-four years. Packys birth heralded Portlands ascent to Elephant Capital of the World, but Roger loved Belle for different reasons: her affectionate nature; her talent for managing other elephants; her willingness to work with keepers and veterinarians; and how hard she strove to understand these strange, two-legged creatures into whose care shed fallen. To see her now, like this, broke his heart.

Removing a small apple from his pants pocket, he angled his slender body between the iron bars and softly spoke her name, his voice rough with smokers gravel despite not having a cigarette in years. One ear twitched in his direction and Belles trunk lifted, curled in an S shape to scent the air as he approached. Dwarfed by her size, he palmed the fruit into her mouth, talking in a low, soothing tone as she half-heartedly chewed. Pulp and juice dribbled from her lips to spatter the floor.