We went for a visit to the United Nations Headquarters (UN HQs) in New York and, after visiting the building we went to admire the sight and scent of the roses at the garden and the view. Then it happened. Our trained eyes spotted a large elephant among the bushes and then they opened wide when it started moving towards us! Immediately, King Kong came to mind…
Well, that start for the post was only to attract the readers’ attention!
However, a life size of a bull elephant does exist and it stands at the UN HQs. It is a bronze cast donated jointly by Kenya, Namibia, and Nepal. Although it seems logical to me that Kenya and Namibia would do such a thing, Nepal was more surprising. However, I should have known that the country has over 200 wild elephants and another 250 captive ones (1). In addition, Nepal has a “wildlife diplomacy” an important part of the country’s soft-power foreign policy (2).
Mihail Simeonov (3) hatched the rather outlandish idea of casting a sleeping elephant in Africa and the account of the events that followed is based on his publication (4).
About 1978, he created the Cast the Sleeping Elephant Trust. The founding document explores “…the philosophical and practical implications of man’s dominance over Nature and the need to readdress and to completely rethink that link to Nature.” The interested reader can find more information in Mihail´s publication.
For the next couple of years, until the cast was actually made on 19 March 1980, Mihail gradually managed to get Kenya´s permission to do the job there. Subsequently, he convinced Kelco, a division of the Merck Corporation, to donate one thousand pounds of alginate, the paste used by dentists to prepare teeth moulds amonmg other medical uses. This was important as other cast methods were not suitable for various reasons and Mihail did not wish to harm the animal.
After overcoming several other issues, Mihail travelled to Kenya where, with Kenyan government support, a suitable wild bull was found at Ol Pejeta (5) and tranquilized. After 2 hours of 20 people working, the cast was completed and the elephant walked away unharmed.
After 5 more years the work was completed and the plaster version exhibited at a gallery in New York. Finally, in 1986, Kenya agreed to donate it to the United Nations. Namibia joined Kenya two hours after its independence and, later, Nepal also agreed to join in.
A number of proclamations from the author and the donor governments on the right for the elephants to exist for eternity ensued and the bronze elephant weighing over 3 tonnes was finally completed at a foundry in NY and, after considering other options, transported by flat bed truck to the UN HQs to be finally placed at the northwest corner of the North Garden.
But there was a snag: the size of the elephant penis!
This subject was treated at a meeting of the Secretariat on 17 November 1998, just one day before it was going to be unveiled. A senior official was worried about the size of the penis and its possible negative impact on children visiting the UN so, eventually, after abandoning the idea of plastic surgery on the offending part, it was decided to dissimulate it by planting bushes around the statue to hide it from view! This work actually ended minutes before its inauguration by SG Kofi Annan on 18 November (6), more than 28 years after the casting took place.
(1) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398959917_Asian_elephants_and_their_status_in_Nepal_a_review#fullTextFileContentRetrieved on 21 May 2026.
(2) https://diplomatnepal.com/feature/wildlife-diplomacy-shifting-from-rhinos-to-elephants/ Retrieved on 21 May 2026.
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihail_Simeonov
(4) https://www.scribd.com/doc/33842662/CAST-THE-SLEEPING-ELEPHANT Retrieved on 21 May 2026.
(5) https://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/ Retrieved on 22 May 2026.
(6) https://press.un.org/en/1998/19981118.sgsm6800.html#:~:text=A%20former%20Governor%20of%20Brazil’s,up%20and%20ask%20for%20peanuts. Retrieved on 21 May 2026.
A Bushsnob out of Africa 