PORT ANGELES — Anyone who wanted the “mini-elephant” posted on the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society Facebook page Friday was doomed to disappointment.
It was just an April Fools’ joke.
The humane society based in Port Angeles posted an image from the Internet in which a man appears to be walking a knee-high elephant and added a plea for a place to house a mini-elephant that supposedly had been surrendered to the society Friday “until we can get him to mini-elephant rescue.”
The tongue-in-cheek posting said Gus McTusk was 5 years old, weighed 220 pounds, was not house-trained “but gets along great with all people and animals (except for mice!).
“We will provide all the bags of peanuts for him to eat and the gallons of lotion needed to keep his skin soft,” the posting said.
A call to the humane society confirmed it was a joke.
“We did not get any calls from people wanting to adopt,” said Mary Beth Wegener, executive director.
“I was surprised. People seemed to be enjoying the joke on Facebook, so I thought someone might call.”
Mini-elephants
Do mini-elephants exist?
“Our vet made it up,” Wegener said, adding that Dr. Suzy Zustiak does an April Fools’ joke every year. She created the mini-elephant.
There is such a thing as a relatively small elephant.
A remnant of pygmy elephants, which grow up to stand between 8.2 feet and 9.8 feet tall, live in Borneo, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and are endangered, with only 1,500 known to exist.
“DNA evidence proved these elephants were isolated about 300,000 years ago from their cousins on mainland Asia and Sumatra,” WWF said on its website at www.worldwildlife.org.
“Over time, they became smaller with relatively larger ears, longer tails and straighter tusks. Today, the pygmy elephants of Borneo are the smallest elephants in Asia.”
African forest elephants, which are considered a “vulnerable” species, inhabit the rainforests of west and central Africa, according to WWF.
They grow to heights between 8 feet and 10 feet and weigh a measly 2 to 5 tons compared to the top weight of an African elephant, the world’s largest land mammal, at 8 tons.
As for a mini-elephant rescue, the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee has photos of its endangered elephants online.
None looks small.
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Executive Editor Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3530 or at lleach@peninsuladailynews.com.
