Wardens cite elephant handler

EASTPORT – Game wardens issued a citation Monday evening to the elephant handler working for a circus traveling through Maine for having failed to obtain an importation permit for three elephants.

Maine’s deputy game warden said Tuesday that the contracted elephant handler for the Walker Bros. Circus has been told to leave the state immediately.

The circus, which has been performing in towns across the state in the last week, set up in Calais for two shows Tuesday evening and two more this evening. Although the elephants were held out of Tuesday’s shows, the handler believed he would receive a permit in time for Wednesday’s shows.

Circus workers spent most of Tuesday scrambling to complete an application for the permit that the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife requires for all captive wildlife that travels through the state.

“We have told them to get out of town, so to speak,” Thomas Santaguida, the deputy chief warden said Tuesday afternoon from Augusta.

“We are not going to chase them to the state line, but they do not have a license to be here. Their direction from us is that they need to physically leave Maine. They are illegal to be here.”

Three field wardens visited the Eastport venue where the circus was set up Monday evening to ask for evidence of a permit. Terry Frisco of Peoria, Ill., the son of the owner of the elephants, was issued a summons to appear in Calais District Court on Aug. 3.

The Washington County District Attorney’s Office will determine if Frisco must appear or just pay a fine before the date.

The Walker Bros. Circus, of Sarasota, Fla., performed in Dexter, Ellsworth and Whitneyville, plus other towns, before arriving in Eastport on Monday.

Frisco and a driver connected to the circus turned up at the counter of the DIF&W in Augusta Tuesday, Santaguida said. A flurry of phone calls and faxes involving Frisco’s three elephants kept the counter staff busy much of the day.

Frisco was hopeful that he could receive a permit by day’s end, but Santaguida told him that wouldn’t happen.

“These applications take time to evaluate,” Santaguida said. “Ordinarily it takes from 30 to 60 days to process a permit application. I need to verify everything. I can’t even consider beginning to process what they want. There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to drop everything else.

“We have told them several times today on the phone that without a permit, they have to leave. The wardens told them that last night, too.”

Eric Holmes, a special agent with the warden service, accompanied warden Joe McBrine Jr. Monday to investigate the elephant handlers. He reported to Santaguida that he believed that Frisco has incurred a violation of the federal Lacey Act by moving protected wildlife for commercial purposes.

The Lacey Act makes it unlawful to “import, export, transport, sell, buy, or possess fish, wildlife, or plants taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any federal, state, foreign, or Native American tribal law, treaty, or regulation,” according to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Web site.

McBrine told Frisco Monday that he may be escorted out of Maine if he doesn’t get a permit immediately.

Dale Clark, the secretary in the chief game warden’s office, said that Terry Frisco was adamant that he leave his $28 permit fee because the circus wants to continue touring in Maine.

“He said that depending if he can get a permit, there are several more events after Calais,” Clark said. “I told him I needed a list of every event and date, and when they are leaving Maine. He said his boss would fill that out and that he would call back [Wednesday].”

One of Frisco’s first moves Tuesday was asking a local veterinarian to examine the three elephants. One of them, Dumbo, has been used to give rides to children in advance of the shows.

Dr. Tami Matheson of the Perry Veterinary Clinic evaluated the elephants and forwarded her signed health report to the Maine Department of Agriculture. There, the state veterinarian, Don Hinig, approved the report and sent an inspection certificate on to Santaguida’s office.

The Walker Bros. Circus was not part of the citations because it does not own or handle the elephants directly. That’s due to its own history of mistreatment of elephants, resulting in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s suspension of an exhibitor’s license after violations in 1997.

Walker Bros. has not applied for a USDA license since then. It continues to offer elephants at its shows by contracting with owners such as Frisco who do have valid USDA licenses.

In March, Walker Bros. admitted guilt to 18 new violations of the USDA-enforced Animal Welfare Act relating to the treatment and care of elephants. The matter was settled with a $25,000 civil payment and a suspension for another five years of a USDA license, should Walker Bros. apply for one.