High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Castor and Pollux were two elephants kept at the zoo Jardin des Plantes in Paris. They were killed and eaten, along with many other animals from the zoo, in late 1870 during the siege of Paris. The two elephants may have been siblings, and had been popular before the siege for giving rides on their backs around the park, but the food shortages caused by the German blockade of the city eventually drove the citizens of Paris to kill them for their meat.