Wednesday 10 April 2013

King Louis XIV's pet elephant attacked with chainsaw

More than 300 years after its death, a pet elephant that once belonged to King Louis XIV has been attacked by a would-be ivory poacher.

By Henry SamuelParis
10:53PM BST 31 Mar 2013

A 20-year-old man allegedly broke into the Museum of Natural History in Paris on Friday night and attacked the elephant’s skeleton with a chainsaw, hacking off its left tusk. He has been detained but not identified.


Neighbours alerted police after being roused by the sound of a chainsaw at 3am. The museum’s alarm also went off after the thief had climbed railings and smashed a thick window to enter.

Within minutes, officers caught a man carrying the tusk over his shoulder. He had a fractured ankle apparently after jumping from a wall. They found the chainsaw still whirring in the museum.

The African elephant, whose skeleton stands in the anatomy gallery of the museum in the Jardin des Plantes was given to the Sun King by the king of Portugal in 1668. It lived in the zoo of Versailles Palace until its death in 1681.

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