The Louisville Zoo has announced that their remaining two elephants, Mikki (African) and Punch (Asian), will be relocated to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee sometime in spring of 2025!
LouisvilleZoo on Instagram: Today, the Louisville Zoo announced it is initiating preparations to relocate African elephant Mikki and Asian elephant Punch to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.
Additionally, a larger elephant habitat with a focus on a multigenerational herd is being considered in the zoo's masterplan.
I'd been wondering if Louisville was going to opt for something like this after Fitz died.
Let's be brutally honest here: Fitz was really the only thing Louisville had going for it as far as elephants were concerned. And I say this as someone who
loves Louisville, it's my local zoo!
It's one of the last facilities in North America that continues to house African and Asian elephants together. The AZA has made it clear that such a thing is a very much something that should be left behind in the past and that zoos going forward should focus on having only one of the two elephant species, not strive to have both of them. (Unless they're the odd zoo who has the means to somehow house both species separately, in expansive enclosures. I guess? Is there any zoo out there who even has that ability?)
The elephant enclosure is
tiny, there's absolutely no room for a breeding herd of
either species as it stands now. Hell, it looks cramped even with just Punch and Mikki!
Punch is
54 years old. She's never had a calf, and she's certainly not going to start having them as she enters her golden years. Yes, she was good with both Scotty and Fitz (As photos online and my own eyes attest to), and it's a shame that she never got to contribute to North America's Asian elephant population, as another wildborn founder is
never a bad thing in a captive population.
But... to be blunt, she's taking up space at a facility that's in
desperate need of revamp. Sending her to TES (The AZA's unofficial/official retirement facility) just makes sense. She'll have literal
acres to roam there, and possibly even have opportunities to socialize with her own species! Something that she hasn't had in
over fifty years!
I don't doubt that this move will be hard on both Punch and Louisville staff alike. Punch has literally never lived anywhere else (Outside of the wild that is)
but Louisville! The staff there are doubtlessly deeply attached to her. And the public too! Louisville loves its zoo, elephants included.
But I genuinely do think that this move will be a super positive thing for Punch in the long run.
And for Louisville itself! Sending the girls away and redoing the elephant exhibit would be great for both the zoo and the city. Louisville in an underrated zoo in my opinion, it's got
a huge variety and even some rare species that one would normally have to go a "legendary" zoo like the Bronx or San Diego to see! But the elephant enclosure definitely doesn't live up to the overall quality the rest of the zoo has, it's a bit of a blight on it to be honest. Which drags Louisville, as a cities, reputation down.
So, sending the girls away to a retirement type place = Great PR.
Revamping the elephant enclosure,
finally bringing it up to date and at the very least, on parr with the rest of the zoo = Also great PR.
It's kind of a win-win situation all around, personal disappointments aside.
My only quibble is that I do hope that Louisville doesn't get "stuck" on the idea of having a multigenerational herd of elephants if it really does want to stick with elephants in the future, and not just, reuse the space the elephant exhibit currently takes up for another species.
North America is in desperate need of bachelor holding facilities! For both elephant species! And that need is only going to continue to grow as both African and Asian populations continue to grow and perhaps, expand. 50% of calves produced are going to be male regardless, those boys are going to need places to live once they start reaching maturity.
And Louisville is actually rather centrally located in the eastern half of the US. Bulls could be shipped in and then shipped out from zoos located all over the east coast rather easily IMHO.
