“There's an elephant walking down the road,” a bystander can be heard saying in a video posted to Facebook by user Brittany McGinnis. “Oh my god,” the witness says with a laugh.
As the elephant wags its trunk and tail as it passes a car on the road, a bystander in the video says: The circus elephant was thrown out. ”
An elephant escaped from the Jordan World Circus, which was holding a show at the Butte Civic Center on Tuesday, local media reported, according to its website. Circus did not respond to a request for comment early Wednesday.
Butte Civic Center Manager Bill Melvin told KXLF that the female elephant briefly escaped from the Jordan World Circus. He said animal handlers were washing the animals outside the civic center when a passing vehicle backfired on them. Melvin said the elephant was startled but managed to escape.
At one point, the animal defecated on someone's lawn, NBC Montana reported. The elephant was eventually captured and returned to the circus without injury, KXLF reported.
Photos and videos of the elephant's escape were quickly posted on social media, sparking mixed reactions.
One person wrote: “This is crazy.” “Probably the elephant was the most free he had ever been in his life,” another wrote.
Despite the dramatic images circulating, Melvin told The Daily Montanan that the elephant's escape was “not as dramatic as you might think.”
“Everyone is home safely,” he said.
The group for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said it had filed a complaint with federal authorities alleging the circus' failure to protect the elephants and the public.
Animal rights groups also urged people not to buy tickets to circuses where elephants are forced to perform.
“Elephants learn important social and behavioral skills from their mothers and other relatives with whom they share strong emotional bonds,” PETA said. “Instead of experiencing all of this in their natural habitat, circus elephants are exploited on the streets performing meaningless circus tricks.”