http://www.elephants.com/media/chicagoTribune_11_30_05.htm
Deal to Transfer Elephants OK'd:
9 of 11 Animals to go to Tennessee Sanctuary

By Jeff Long
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published November 30, 2005

Nine of the 11 elephants remaining at a circus-training facility near Richmond in McHenry County will be moved to a Tennessee sanctuary by mid-January under an agreement signed Tuesday.

The deal comes after months of stalemates in talks between Hawthorn Corp. and the Elephant Sanctuary of Hohenwald, Tenn.

"We are relieved," said Carol Buckley, executive director of the sanctuary. "It's been such a long road."

Derek Shaffer, lawyer for Hawthorn and its owner, John Cuneo of Grayslake, said "everyone involved in this process has increasingly done a better job of cooperating with each other."

Hawthorn's lone male elephant, Nicholas, will not go to Tennessee, Shaffer and Buckley said, because a male elephant would be disruptive to the sanctuary's herd of females. Shaffer said a female, Gypsy, also will remain until a home is found for the male.

Shaffer said Gypsy might go with Nicholas if Hawthorn can find a home that will take both; otherwise she might eventually go to the sanctuary, he said.

"She's a good companion for Nicholas," Shaffer said.

The Elephant Sanctuary already had taken three Hawthorn elephants. One, Lota, died in February of tuberculosis that it contracted before arriving at the sanctuary.

In previous attempts to send the rest to Tennessee, talks broke down over whether Cuneo would help pay for transporting them and for their upkeep after they arrived. Buckley estimated the yearly cost of caring for the Hawthorn elephants would be about $2 million.

Shaffer said Cuneo would not pay for the elephants' care under the agreement. The Elephant Sanctuary will arrange for transport them from Richmond to Tennessee, he said.

Buckley estimated it would take five trips to get the nine elephants to Tennessee.

Before the move can begin, Tennessee officials want the sanctuary to erect an electric fence to keep the Hawthorn elephants, which have been exposed to TB, separate from other elephants at the 2,700-acre sanctuary.

Buckley estimated that all of the animals would be moved by mid-January.

The search for new homes for the elephants began in April 2003, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture charged Cuneo with failing to properly care for his animals.

In exchange for keeping tigers he also raised and trained there, Cuneo agreed in March 2004 to give up his elephants.