Castor and Pollux (elephants)

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Death of Castor and Pollux

Castor and Pollux were the names of two elephants from the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris , who were killed in December 1870 to obtain their meat for food.

The elephant slaughter and its background

Menu dated December 25, 1870 with a consommé d'Eléphant

Since September 19, 1870, the German field troops besieged the city ​​of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and systematically shelled it. The siege lasted until January 28, 1871. By autumn 1870, the city's supplies were running out. The first thing to do was to run out of fresh supplies such as bread, dairy products and vegetables. As a result, the population of Paris lived on horse meat, which had to be paid dearly, and then also on cats and dogs. At the end of 1870, attention turned to the animals in the zoos.

Herbivores such as antelopes , camels and zebras were sold to the butchers and slaughtered. Monkeys were not consumed, the hippopotamus was spared as it was too expensive. The two elephants Castor and Pollux from the Jardin des Plantes were killed by bullets in December 1870, their meat was bought and sold by a boucherie .

A menu with a Christmas menu from December 25, 1870 offers a Consommé d'Eléphant under Potage . Elephant meat was not considered tasty. As early as 1868, on the occasion of the successful hunt for the " elephant of Murten " in 1866 , an eyewitness noted that the meat distributed to the population of the small Swiss town required "steeled teeth" in order not to cause " indigestion " and that it was therefore extremely rare " To serve a mouth-watering, tasty rabbit pepper from elephant meat ".

literature

  • Richard DE Burton: Blood in the city. Violence and revelation in Paris 1789-1945 . Cornell University Press 2001.
  • Zoological contributions . Duncker & Humblot 1971, p. 144

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Société zoologique d'acclimatation, Jardin d'acclimatation (Paris) , accessed on May 17, 2009
  2. ^ Johann Frey, locksmith in Murten (1868); quoted from: Stephan Oettermann : The curiosity of the elephant. An Elephantographia Curiosa . Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main 1982, p. 179 f.

Web links