Belfast Zoo has identified the woman who looked after one of its elephants in her backyard during the Second World War.Sheila the baby elephant was moved out of the zoo over fears for her safety during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Grainy photographs of her drinking from a bucket outside a red brick house revealed that she had been offered sanctuary in somebody's backyard.
Now, after a public appeal for information, it has been discovered that it was the one of the zoo's first female keepers.
The so-called 'elephant angel' was Denise Austin, who used to walk Sheila about the streets of north Belfast calling into shops where the calf was treated to portions of stale bread.
Denise died in 1997 but the long-running puzzle was solved by one of her surviving relatives, second cousin David Ramsey.
"Denise was eccentric and lived in a rather exotic home in North Belfast called Loughview House," he said.
The Belfast man explained that Sheila stayed in her enclosure at the zoo during the day and went home to Denise's house at night.
"When the head keeper Dick Foster left work, Denise took Sheila from her enclosure, walked her a short distance to her house at 278 Whitewell Road, and walked her back up to the zoo in the morning, sometimes stopping at a shop, the Thrones Stores, on the Whitewell road for stale bread."
Sheila was one of the lucky ones at the zoo, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Many animals were killed because of public safety fears of an escape during the bombing.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3256255.html
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