Panicked Pachyderm

An amusement park company thought of a clever way to promote the first day of its stock sales Wednesday - take an elephant to the stock exchange. The pachyderm thought otherwise. The noise, cars and crowds of downtown Madrid, Spain, spooked Clarisa, a 12-year-old elephant, so badly she broke away from caretakers and knocked into traffic lights, a lamppost and a trash bin. In the end, they shot Clarisa with a tranquilizer gun, then used a crane to hoist her snoozing hulk onto a truck bound for the Madrid zoo. The elephant never made it to the stock exchange photo session where she was to have appeared with officials of Parques Reunidos S.A. The company owns the Madrid zoo as well as amusement and theme parks.