An Elephant not Forgotten

This article was written by Kelly Her and published by the Taiwan Review on April 1, 2006. It features Lin Wang, which was once the world's oldest Asian elephant in captivity. The elephant has now come to life again through the hands of a taxidermist in Taiwan.

Lin Wang had captured the affections of Taiwanese people for the past half-century. When it died in February 2003, there were three days of mourning, during which some 180,000 people paid their respects. President Chen Shui-bian sent a wreath of flowers to its public funeral. Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou also bestowed posthumous citizenship on this famous Taipei resident. In Ma's words: "Lin Wang was part of the collective memory of four generations of people in Taiwan. He'd seen us growing up, and we'd seen him growing old."

When Lin Wang was 26, he was captured in Burma by Japanese forces that were fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia during the Second World War. The elephant was conscripted into service as a pack animal, lugging ammunition and supplies across rivers and over mountains. Eventually, Lin Wang and 12 other elephants were captured from the Japanese by a Chinese Nationalist expeditionary force under the command of General Sun Li-jen. The elephants continued soldiering under their new commanders.

After the Second World War, the elephants marched with Sun's forces on an 18-month-long journey from Burma through the Chinese cities of Kunming and Nanjing before eventually stopping at Guangzhou. When Sun was dispatched to Taiwan in 1947, he set sail with 3 of his elephant soldiers - two females and one male (which was Lin Wang). After 48 hours at sea, the landed in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung harbor. The elephants were transported to the Fengshan military camp by railway. One female elephant died shortly after, but the other two elephants continued to perform public service by lugging supplies for railway construction. In 1951, the second female elephant fell sick and died. Lin Wang was left all by himself.

Lin Wang was transferred to the Taipei Yuanshan Zoo on October 30, 1954. The date later became the elephant's official birth date. It was at the Taipei Yuanshan Zoo where Lin Wang came together with the four year-old Ma Lan, a female elephant imported from Japan. It was also here that the elephant had enjoyed his retired life.

The Taipei Yuanshan Zoo eventually became too small to accommodate the growing number of animals. In 1986, the Taipei Zoo opened in Muzha as a much larger and well-designed facility. It proved quite difficult to move Lin Wang to his new home. A special large container was constructed and installed in his pan before the moving day, and food was put in it so that Lin Wang could get used to it. On the moving day, Lin Wang went into the container - and dashed out just when his keeper tried to close the door. When the keeper put food in the container again, he used his back feet to prevent the door from closing while using his trunk to fetch the food. Eventually the keeper and other workers had to use thick ropes to drag the stubborn elephant into the container.

When the container arrived at the Taipei Zoo, Lin Wang dashed out as soon as the door was opened. He mistook a nearby phone booth as the shape of Ma Lan and rushed full speed ahead, tumbling into the ditch that were used to keep the elephants in their enclosure. He remained there sulking, until the zookeepers released Ma Lan from her container. As soon as he saw her, Lin Wang climbed out of the ditch. The two of them then settled into their new home, which was dubbed by the zookeepers as the "White House".

The Taipei Zoo celebrated Lin Wang's 80th birthday with a newly constructed tropical-forest-like residence. However, while Lin Wang was doing well, Ma Lan's health began to deteriorate. She died in 2002 at the age of 54, leaving Lin Wang all alone again. The lonely elephant eventually died in mid-February in 2003, at the age of 86.

After Lin Wang died, taxidermist Lin Wen-lung was summoned by the Taipei Zoo to turn the elephant into a stuffed version of his old self. Lin had been stuffing animals for more than 20 years and produced specimens of different sizes, which ranged from mice and birds to a tiger. But he had never attempted anything as big as an elephant.

Lin constructed a steel and wooden frame, sculpted the body from foam and coated it with acrylic. This allowed for the elephant's giant size to be preserved and the posture to look natural. After peeling off the hide, Lin used salination and tanning techniques to create the exterior. These antiseptic measures would enable the specimen to last for more than 50 years. Finally, Lin sewed the thick elephant hide onto the frame and added finishing touches to restore its complexion.

The task was particularly difficult because Lin had to capture Lin Wang's facial expressions authentically. Indeed, the Taipei Zoo insisted that the complete specimen must resemble Lin Wang - or the deal was off. After eight months of work, an evaluation panel commissioned by the Taipei Zoo and consisted of art critics, museum executives, veterinarians and zookeepers declared that Lin's work was a success. Lin Wang truly resembled his old self. The taxidermic specimen is now standing in the Taipei Zoo's Education Center, which also displays relevant photos, documents, films and interactive games about Lin Wang. As a matter of fact, the Lin Wang exhibition has played an important role in the zoo's transformation from an amusement park to a center for education and conservation.

At present, Taiwan's largest animation company, Wang Film Productions, is working on an animated 3D film that is based on Lin Wang's life. The film is scheduled to be released in 2007. Meanwhile, in order to contribute to the conservation of Asian elephants, the Taipei Zoo has been cooperating with the Wildlife Fund in Thailand in recent years. The Taipei Zoo sends staff members to Thailand to learn more about elephant breeding and medical care for the endangered animals. In turn, the Thai organization receives funding to monitor the movement of wild elephants, build enclosures to prevent them from trespassing on farmland, and inform local people how to handle these animals during unexpected encounters.