In the no-nonsense parlance of York Regional Police, they were described as “elephants outstanding.”
In fact there were elephants out standing in the middle of downtown Newmarket, Ont., just north of Toronto, early Thursday morning – munching on tree leaves, stress-testing the concrete, freaking out the local population, and doing what escaped circus elephants do.
Suzy, Bunny and Minny, weighing in at a combined 11,000 kilograms, managed to escape from the confines of their Garden Brothers Circus pen around 3 a.m. Thursday. An electric fence, the sole guard against such pachydermic freedom, had been accidentally disabled earlier in the evening.
And so Suzy and Bunny made a break for it. Minny, too, got out of the pen, but then promptly fell asleep.
A group of Newmarket residents came across the two escapees around 3 a.m., resulting in the following call to 911:
Caller: “Hi. Umm... we've found an elephant walking down the street near the community centre, the Ray Twiney.
Operator: “Sorry?”
Caller: “We've found an elephant walking down the street. Like the ones from, like, the circus at the Ray Twiney Centre. One of them got loose and it's walking down the street.”
For the next few minutes, the caller explains that there are, in fact, at least two fully grown, trainer-less elephants milling about, as a woman in the background can be heard futilely exclaiming: “Don't let it cross the street!”
Cops and elephant trainers quickly made it to the scene. Using strategically placed cars, they diverted the animals back to their pens. No one was injured during the affair, and Suzy, Bunny and Minny were getting ready for opening night at the circus just a few hours later.
