Cornelius the First

Cornelius the First was a Canadian black rhinoceros from the Granby Zoo in Granby, Quebec, who was the nominal leader of the federal political party, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada from 1965 to 1993. The party attracted a considerable number of votes in Canadian elections, sometimes even coming in second place in some ridings, but never elected a candidate to the Canadian House of Commons.

During the Canadian federal election of 1984 The party made a major part of their platform declaring war on Belgium because a Belgian cartoon character, Tintin, killed a rhinoceros in one of the cartoons.[1] The party offered to call off the threatened Belgium-Canada war if Belgium delivered a case of mussels and a case of Belgian beer to Rhinoceros "Hindquarters" in Montreal (the Belgian Embassy in Ottawa did, in fact, do this)[1]

The Granby Zoo eventually traded Cornelius to the San Diego Zoo in exchange for a giraffe.[2] The San Diego Zoo loaned him to the Caldwell Zoo, where he fathered an offspring on January 6, 2003.[3]

The name "Cornelius" is a French-language pun, as the French word for "horn" is corne.

References

  1. ^ a b "Dateline-Montreal Grand Prix update". Forces Canada. September 5, 2003. http://www.forces.org/canada/news-archive/092003.htm. 
  2. ^ Ingrid Peritz (August 8, 2007). "After years of near-extinction, the whacky Rhino party is back". The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070808.RHINO08/TPStory/National. 
  3. ^ "Black Rhino Born at Caldwell Zoo" (PDF). Significant Efforts in Conservation (Association of Zoos and Aquariums). April 2003. http://www.aza.org/Publications/2003/04/April2003SigEffortsCons.pdf.