Circus Elephants Trample Homeowner's Yard

Link : http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20041014/ap_on_fe_st/elephant_complaint

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A homeowner in southern Sweden filed a police complaint after four circus elephants broke loose from their trainers and ran into his back yard, trampling the hedge and the lawn, a police spokesman said Thursday.



Mattias Lindell, 29, said the elephants completely ruined his garden Monday, after animal trainers working for German-based Circus Mustang lost control of the pachyderms when removing them from the vehicles they travel in. The circus had put up its tent only a few feet away from his house outside Helsingborg, on Sweden's southwestern coast, Lindell told The Associated Press.


He filed a police complaint Wednesday, seeking damages for the destroyed hedge and ruined lawn, which was "just turned into dirt," he said.


However, it was not the ruined yard that had Lindell angry.


"I have a three-month old baby who often sleeps in the garden, in a carriage," he said. "If he had been doing that when this happened, things could have been a lot worse."


Circus Mustang officials could not be reached for comment. The circus, which tours Sweden every summer and fall, has previously been reported to the police by several animal inspectors who have complained about insufficient care of its animals. One inspector reported that moldy hay was fed to the circus' elephants.


In May, the father of a 10-year-old boy filed a police complaint against the circus after one of its elephants trampled his child's bicycle in Finspaang, 110 miles southwest of the capital, Stockholm.


Lindell said circus employees were able to quickly remove three of the elephants from his back yard.


"With the fourth, they had to throw snares around his neck, and then they dragged him away with a tractor," he said.


Police spokesman Haakan Jonsson said police would investigate the incident, but that he did not think criminal charges could be filed in the case.


"I don't think the animals had criminal intent," he said. "But it's a good thing we didn't have to arrest the perpetrators. That would have been tricky."