The Elephant Angel 大象天使

The baby elephant, Sheila, was moved out of Belfast Zoo because of fears she might be hit by bombers 轰炸机 during the Belfast Blitz 贝尔法斯特闪电战 of 1941.

She was one of the lucky ones. A lot of the animals were killed because of fears they might escape during the bombing and attack people. They included a tiger, a black bear, a lynx, a hyena, and two polar bears.

But Sheila was walked down the road by zoo-keepers 动物园饲养员 to a nearby house where a woman gave her sanctuary 庇护 in her backyard 后院 for several months until the bombing was over.

The woman has never been identified and the zoo knows her only as "the elephant angel 天使".

As it celebrates its 75th birthday the bosses have decided to try to identify 寻找 her. Mark Challis is the manager of Belfast Zoo. He explained a bit more about Sheila's story.

"Well we know that Sheila, the elephant that was in the zoo at that time spent some time living with a lady relatively near to the zoo and we have one sweet photograph, you can see it on our zoo website.

"We have a photograph of the elephant with the lady and friend, honestly and literally in her back garden and that's roughly all we know.

"So we're just trying to find a little bit more information and maybe, not sure that the lady might be alive, but maybe her relatives 亲戚 or somebody will recognise 认出 the back of that house and we can fill in 填写 some detail on this story."

Once the bombing was over, Sheila went back to the zoo and lived for another quarter of a century 25年. She died of a skin complaint 皮肤疾病 in 1966.