Meet
Nicholas

Nicholas, a bull elephant born on December 15, 1993, arrived at PAWS’ Galt sanctuary on April 2, 2007, at the age of 13. With his arrival, PAWS became the first sanctuary to care for a bull elephant.

Nicholas was born at a circus breeding facility and separated from his mother before the age of two. He was trained to perform, including riding a tricycle and walking on a balance beam. By age five, Nicholas was deemed too difficult to manage and he was retired from circus performances, only to be “warehoused” and forgotten.

For nine years, Nicholas lived with Gypsy, an unrelated female elephant who became his surrogate mother. The two were transferred to PAWS’ Galt, California, facility, following a consent agreement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Hawthorn Corporation. They remained in mandated quarantine for one year before being moved to their new home at ARK 2000.

As Nicholas matured, his natural hormonal changes made it necessary to separate him from Gypsy in January 2009. This marked a pivotal moment in his life, signaling the end of his need for a maternal figure. In the wild, this would have been the time for a young bull to gradually leave his family and join other males to learn the behaviors essential to elephant life. In captivity, this process is not possible.

Today, Nicholas weighs in at a remarkable 17,100 pounds. A favored pasttime is shoving and playing with large logs and tree branches. His favorite treat is wheat bran, which he carefully gathers up in his trunk, while making a contended “purring” sound.