Elephant found in coffee shop

Remember the song about Nelly the elephant, who packed her trunk and ran away from the circus?

Turns out she was a role model.

These were the chaotic scenes when a 2.5-ton circus elephant called Baby gave her handlers the slip and went walkabout in a retail park in Cork, Ireland - much to the alarm of shoppers.

She was first spotted by a startled customer as she investigated a branch of Costa Coffee.

The 40-year-old Indian elephant was then filmed blithely ignoring the direction arrows in the adjacent car park as her handlers struggled to keep her away from the vehicles.

She finally made her way through the exit barriers before being safely returned to the circus.

The whole drama, which happened on Tuesday, was caught on video. Coffee shop manager Egle Vilumaite said: "One customer said, 'Look, there's an elephant running around', and I said, 'Yeah, okay' because the day before they had been walking the elephants around for publicity.

"But this elephant had escaped and was running around on its own. Then you could see the guys from the circus. It was quick, maybe three to five minutes, but it was really intense."

Courtney's Circus said Baby ran away because she did not want to take a shower, but insisted no one had been in danger.

From: iol.co.za