The Elephant Community Center is renovated on the inside to be modern, but there are touches of history still there. The engravings in the building and the three plates (elephant, hippo, rhino) are still on the floor. Guests are not allowed to see the holding quarters in the recently addition of the barn, as well as the bull elephant holding area. However, we see a main area for the female elephants. They have three doors in the back that provide more natural sunlight and allow the elephants to venture outside if they choose to do so. In the front center, is a pool for the elephant with shower misters above. They did this feature before they brought the elephants back out, but it would be interesting to see the elephants adapt to it and bath in the showering water. The back wall contains all the new graphics. The first section is a picture diagram of Elephant Trails. Next, is a history time line of elephants at the zoo. Visitors can pull up a label for each event for more details or a photo. What is an Asian Elephant has cutouts of an adult and baby. You can pull tabs from the body to get more information about their physical features. Extreme Elephant is next showing what goes in an elephant and what comes out of an elephant. There's also a tire guests can push their force into to see how their strength compares to an elephant. Above that is a TV screen with a video clip of the male elephant playing with a swinging tire. In front of this section is a platform for visitors to walk on to see their weight and compare it to an elephant's weight. A warning to some: If you are like me and haven't weighed yourself in awhile, you may get a scary result! Epic Elephant Stories has a backdrop of books on a shelf and more information on these animals. Last is a photo booth guests can take pictures in and make a pledge to elephants. In front of the viewing area of the elephants is meet the elephant pages that talks about each elephant at the zoo.
The final yards looks almost the same in the past (what I can remember of them when seeing them again). The outside hippo exhibit remains the same. The elephant exhibit looks the same, but it has shading structures. Also a barrier around the exhibit has been added. Pictures are in the gallery.
@ BeardsleyZooFan: I did not see your message until now. I know the sloth bear cannot go on exhibit until it gets vaccines. The cub's examine is in April and the keeper guessed he'd be out in the next couple of months. I would expect the Andean bear cubs a little earlier than that, I heard a prediction of mid April.
