BUTTE - An elephant was running loose on Harrison Avenue in Butte on Tuesday after it temporarily escaped from a traveling circus.
Butte Civic Center Manager Bill Melvin confirmed an elephant temporarily got loose from the Jordan World Circus that’s in town at the civic center. Melvin said the elephant’s handlers were washing the female elephant outside the civic center when a passing vehicle backfired and spooked the animal.
The elephant ran across a busy Harrison Avenue stopping traffic while a handler ran after it. The spooked animal was soon safely corralled back at the civic center without injury, according to Melvin.
Cell phone video taken by Brittany McGinnis shows the elephant running across Harrison Avenue with someone running alongside it. The pachyderm then runs through the parking lot of the Town Pump gas station.
Watch the video below:
