The elephants are walked to the lake by keepers via a corridor between The Land of the Cold and The Kingdom of Ganesha. Pairi keeps their elephant under free contact.
I do not like free contact elephant management, but I gotta say the fact that they can walk them down to other areas (on this case, a huge lake) has to be a pretty stimulating experience for the animals. I'm curious to know what you think of this "activity"?
@SivatheriumGuy I do think the fact the elephants get to bathe and swim in a lake is good for them, and it did seem that they enjoyed it, but I am not a huge fan of free contact elephant husbandry either, so I have mixed feelings about this activity.
At the very least they seem to be keeping the elephants a little further away from the public than they once did, as I have seen images of them walking elephants on walkways between the public. They still have to cross a public walkway to get the elephants to the lake, but the beach itself has been fenced and is some distance away from the walkway. It seemed relatively well managed compared to some of the stuff they previously did.
That said, I don't think them adding a small lake to the elephant reserves would be a bad choice.
