There are still circus elephants in 2024?
Butte, Montana residents probably thought they were hallucinating as an adult elephant wreaked havoc on their town Tuesday morning. The circus tents could not contain this multi-ton wild animal, which got loose after it was reportedly “spooked” by a vehicle.
Once it got a taste of freedom, the massive elephant (which has been identified as an elderly elephant named Viola) kicked it into gear. Clearly it didn’t want to back to a life of eating circus peanuts and doing tricks, so much so that it pulled off its very own trick outside of the circus: A disappearing act.
Traffic came to a standstill in the middle of the Montana town as the large land animal trotted right down the road. The woman filming this all from her car, as she backed away from the elephant might I add, provided some hilarious commentary as the big-eared creature strolled across the street:
“F****** elephant walking down the road. Oh my God. Only in Butte.”
In the footage, one of the elephant’s handlers is following close by on foot, but the big ol’ elephant didn’t care one bit. You’d think with those ears, it would be able to hear commands to stop, though I doubt it was interested in doing so even if it did hear its handler.
It was definitely an interesting day in Butte, Montana, and a day that eventually ended with all of the elephants being accounted for. “Viola” the circus elephant was finally caught and brought back to where it belonged, and I’m assuming that the show went on? Hopefully they gave the elephant a day off after this fiasco.
The video is hilarious to say the least, and made for quite the interesting story for Montana residents. And for those wishing that the elephant could have done more while it was out and about, it reportedly “left a present” behind for Butte officials to clean up later on:
“An elephant got loose in Butte on Tuesday. The Jordan World Circus is in town tonight. The elephant is now safe with its handlers. Viewer say before the elephant was captured, it did number two on a Butte lawn.”
