BANGOR — Avid photographer Jeff Kirlin had no ulterior motives when he asked for backstage access to the Anah Temple Shrine circus that came to the Bangor Civic Center in April 2008.

But among the thousands of photos he took that week of spangled trapeze artists, jolly clowns and other quintessential circus scenes were several shots of an Asian elephant named Ned that have led to serious and long-lasting consequences.

Kirlin recently has been issued a subpoena by the United States Department of Agriculture requiring him to travel to Washington, D.C., next week to testify at a hearing to determine whether Ned’s handler, Lancelot Kollman Ramos of Balm, Florida, acted in violation of the Animal Welfare Act when he exhibited Ned. It’s an administrative hearing, presided over by Law Judge Janice K. Bullard. While the wild animal trainer’s license was revoked several years ago, it might result in monetary fines. Kollman Ramos’s attorney said his client is fighting the charges.

“I took the photos backstage. I thought they were fine. I was excited to see an elephant and everything,” Kirlin, known for his online photo blog called The Thing of the Moment, said this week. “I assured this guy I was not one of those PETA people. … I posted them to, I think, Flickr. Then I got an email from a woman at the Oakland, California zoo. She asked me what I knew about the elephant.”

Although Kirlin readily admits he did not know much about elephants at the time, it turned out the 20-year-old elephant was sick and emaciated — about 2,000 pounds underweight, to be exact.

“I was just thinking that elephants aren’t as fat as I thought,” said Kirlin, who described Ned as ‘narrow.’ “What [Kollman Ramos] did wrong was that you can own a sick elephant, but you can’t work it.”

But Ned did work at the circus in Bangor, performing shows and carrying excited local children on his back, and Kirlin’s photos showed that. There also was a shot of Ned apparently chained to a big green dumpster outside the civic center. The pictures generated attention and outrage from animal lovers and elephant advocates who saw them on the Internet. In November, 2008, the USDA, the federal agency that regulates animals that are exhibited to the public, seized Ned from his owner and brought him to live at the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee.

There, a detailed online diary tracks his health and activities until May 15, 2009, when Ned died at the age of 21 of causes that remained undetermined. In the wild, Asian elephants can live up to 60 years, but when in captivity, their lifespans are typically shorter. Scott Blais, now the CEO of Global Sanctuary for Elephants, co-founded the sanctuary and wrote an email to the BDN this week about the elephant.

“Ned was one of the saddest, most tragic cases of negligent care of an elephant I’ve seen, inside and out. Outwardly, he was a frail, walking skeleton of an elephant constrained by immeasurable fear and distrust,” Blais wrote. “His life had lacked even the simplest of kindnesses. During his short time at Sanctuary we saw glimpses that he wanted to trust, but the damage caused by his captive life was too great for Ned to overcome.”

Bill Cook, attorney for Kollman Ramos, said Ned had extensive health problems before his client owned him. Kollman Ramos comes from a circus family and was a renowned tiger trainer before the USDA revoked his license, Cook said. When he owned Ned, the trainer allegedly tried to get the ailing elephant veterinary care from doctors specializing in exotic animals, but it was to no avail.

“We have all sorts of evidence that nobody could figure out what was wrong with the elephant,” Cook said Wednesday morning. “The USDA took the elephant from him, and the people [in Tennessee] couldn’t do anything either. At least Lance was able to keep it alive. I don’t know why the USDA isn’t going after those other [Elephant Sanctuary] folks.”

Cook said his client is trying to get his exhibition license back and filed a complaint in May against the USDA at United States District Court Middle District of Florida in order to do so. Cook said he believes next week’s administrative hearing is happening because the USDA is “concerned he’s going to win his federal case.” Cook said his client’s license was revoked because of an incident involving two young lions that died after they were out of Kollman Ramos’ custody. According to the lawyer, the USDA took it away on a technicality.

“It’s one of my more interesting cases,” the attorney said. “He’s a really great person, and he got a really raw deal from the government.”

A phone call this week to a USDA attorney working on the Kollman Ramos case was not returned.

Unless the two sides somehow come to a settlement agreement before Sept. 24 — and Kirlin said he hopes they will — the reluctant witness will be flown to the Capitol, courtesy of the USDA. There he will testify about the photos he took in Bangor of Ned, the elephant that died a little over a year after he performed in Maine.

Ned won’t soon be forgotten, Blais said, no matter what happens in Washington, D.C.

“Of the 25 elephants that have been lucky enough to experience life at The Elephant Sanctuary, Ned is the one that has left the biggest void in my heart,” he wrote. “He was not yet 22 years old and all of the joy had been stolen from his soul in the name of entertainment. He deserved better.”

Kirlin is bemused about what his hobby has gotten him into and said when he asked for permission to take photographs backstage at the circus in 2009, he gently was told it wouldn’t be a good idea.

“All I got was banned from the circus,” he said.

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