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The tale of Topsy the Elephant is sad and cruel, and today marks the 110th year since her grisly demise at the hands of Thomas Edison’s staged electrocution on Coney Island at Luna Park.

Topsy was a female circus elephant who never was comfortable with her captivity. Over her 28-year lifespan, she killed three men including a sadistic and abusive trainer who tried to feed Topsy lit cigarettes as food. Because of Topsy’s infractions towards her brutal masters, she was deemed too dangerous to live.

Originally, Topsy’s Luna Park owners wanted to kill her by hanging, but according to Wikipedia, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stepped in and prevented that from happening. Although, quite frankly, in today’s world the logistics of hanging an elephant seem far more amazing than any of the alternatives.

But that’s today’s world. One hundred years ago, the alternative offered by famed inventor Thomas Edison was nearly magical. Edison stepped up and had the bright idea of electrocuting Topsy to death. Why that wasn’t considered cruel is beyond me, but everyone was willing to go along with it. It was just that kind of world.

Edison’s motives were to use poor Topsy as a prop in his ongoing war against Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla’s far superior Alternating Current electrical system. Edison, the inventor of the clearly inferior Direct Current method, juiced Topsy with 6,600 volts of Tesla’s AC, dropping her in seconds.

More than 1,500 spectators gathered at Luna Park on January 4, 1903, to witness the grim spectacle, and Edison filmed the execution as “evidence” of AC’s unsafe nature.

Edison distributed his short film throughout the United States, providing one of the earliest examples of filmed corporate propaganda. Ultimately, DC won the battle for America’s infrastructure in large part because of this flick.

While Topsy’s fate was tragic, her memory lives on in the form of a memorial erected at the Coney Island Museum on July 20, 2003.

Source: Brocken Inaglory via Wikimedia Commons

Agents with the U.S. Department of Agriculture killed 751 geese at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge early Monday Morning.

“It was sometime late this morning,” Glen Caplin, a spokesman for Kirsten Gillibrand, told Metro. “My understanding is they were euthanized.”

Officials from Gillibrand’s office have been trying to get agents into the refuge for over three years. They say that the geese are a danger to planes taking off at JFK and LaGuardia airports.

In 2009, geese were said to be responsible for bringing down a flight and this April, a Jet Blue plane flying from Westchester Airport made an emergency landing after it hit two Canadian geese. Also, a Delta flight had to be grounded after it hit flying geese.

USDA agents have previously gassed geese to death within a seven-mile radius of New York’s major airports. They were unable to get into the wildlife refuge because the federal government had been resistant to allowing USDA agents in until an environmental study was completed on the impact of the culling.

When that study was done, agents went in.

“We could not afford to sit back and wait for a catastrophe to occur before cutting through bureaucratic red tape between federal agencies,” said Gillibrand in a statement. “We are finally taking action to help reduce bird strikes and save lives.”

Photo by Erica Sherman

The following is a press release from the offices of State Senator Marty Golden:

State Senator Martin J. Golden (R-C-I, Brooklyn) today is announcing that he will co-sponsor legislation, S. 3804, that seeks to establish an animal cruelty registry in New York State.

Senator Marty Golden stated, “There is no place in our society for cruelty or abuse of animals.  It is my hope that this registry will prevent such reprehensible behavior and will help to bring an end to violence against animals. I have signed on as a co-sponsor of this legislation because there is a need to have laws in New York that will improve the safety of our animals.”

S. 3804 would require that persons convicted of animal cruelty or animal fighting must register with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. Information stored in the registry would be made available to all law enforcement entities, district attorneys, humane societies, societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, animal control officers, breeders of animals and pet stores doing business in New York.

Persons required to register may not own a companion animal or be employed at an animal shelter, pound, pet store, zoo or any other business establishment where companion animals are present. Persons convicted of animal cruelty or animal fighting shall be subject to a surcharge of $50.00 to help pay for the costs of maintaining the registry.

Assemblyman James Tedisco (R-C-I, Schenectady-Saratoga) is the sponsor of similar legislation, A. 1506, in the State Assembly.