Here in St. Ipps the village just along from the Sasha village , there is a very special place that’s just opened.
It started a few years back when an old Schoenhut Circus elephant came to live in the village.
He was tired and sad that he no longer had children playing with him and was so happy to find a new home where he was surrounded by Schoenhut children and also Sasha children.
He loved his new life but something was missing…. family.. elephants live in herds , so a lone elephant missed having others around to talk to and join in with.
Then just the other week another elephant came to join the family.
This poor one’s strings are so loose it can hardly stand up!
But it does have a very rare thing! The end of it’s trunk! although the rubbers degraded, so it can no longer stay attached to the rest of the trunk, it’s owner likes to carry it around and pretend it still works, until it drops off!
But not one but two elephants arrived to join the lonely old elephant.
So now there were three happy elephants beginning to form their own new herd.
And then Monty had an idea! He decided that he would open a Sanctuary for old Schoenhut Circus elephants , so they could spend their days joining roaming free about the sanctuary grounds doing what they wanted and not entertaining people in circuses.
Of course normally in the UK we have donkey sanctuary’s! So it’s lucky that a couple of Schoenhut donkeys decided that they’d travel with the elephants to the new Sanctuary to join in!
These two lads look a right couple of characters!
and now these are the Sanctuary’s first residents , will there be any others….. who can say!
Of course they’ll need someone to help look after them and that’s where the new lad Jack comes in.
Being new Jack will be settling in along with the Elephants and donkeys, getting to know the place and each other.
You can see that the elephants are quite small compared to Jack, that’s because they are an extremely rare breed of elephant, The Schoenhut Pygmy elephant, bred to be used in the circuses of the Schoenhut and only now escaping to live a life of freedom.
So we’ll be coming back, to see how the elephants and donkeys are getting on in their new home and whether any others have joined the herd over the coming months.
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schoenhuthouse 