DATE: Sunday, July 13, 1997                 TAG: 9707130072

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

DATELINE: ASSOCIATED PRESSSALEM, VA.        LENGTH:   40 lines

BEACH MAN SENTENCED, FINED IN BEATING OF ELEPHANT

A fair worker who climbed into Butch the elephant's pen and beat the animal several times with a section of aluminum fence has been convicted of cruelty to animals.

Donald Mark Chaffe, 30, of Virginia Beach, was fined $200 and sentenced to 90 days in jail after Judge George W. Harris found him guilty of the misdemeanor in Salem General District Court.

Harris said he would suspend the sentence after the fine was paid. An official at the Salem-Roanoke County Jail said Chaffe was released Friday afternoon.

John Claude Kipley, a 16-year-old attendant at the Salem Fair's petting zoo, testified that Chaffe and another man climbed over a waist-high aluminum fence to pet Butch while Kipley was refilling the elephant's water tub with a garden hose on Tuesday.

Butch picked up the hose and put it in his mouth and stuck his trunk straight out toward Chaffe's friend, who was petting the elephant, Kipley said.

``It was curled but not wrapped around (Chaffe's friend's) arm,'' Kipley said.

Kipley said he looked away for moment. The next thing he saw was Chaffe with the 6-foot section of fence raised over his head.

``He had it back and was slamming it on (Butch's) hip and the front of his trunk,'' Kipley said.

Chaffe then put the section of fence back and walked off, Kipley said.

The attack angered the 7,000-pound elephant, who began tugging at double chains that keep him in the pen.

Petting zoo manager Howie Reynolds said the elephant wasn't physically hurt by the attack. Butch has resumed giving rides, although he is still a little cranky, Reynolds said.

Chaffe testified that he was afraid Butch was going to hurt someone with his trunk, said Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King. KEYWORDS: CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu