This photo shows at least 80% of the outdated exhibit, and now the zoo is down to a single 37 year-old female Asian Elephant. I wonder if the establishment will send the remaining elephant to a zoo with a greater capacity (Oklahoma City, National, Los Angeles, etc) or attempt to add two more females to meet upcoming AZA regulations?
This photo shows at least 80% of the outdated exhibit, and now the zoo is down to a single 37 year-old female Asian Elephant. I wonder if the establishment will send the remaining elephant to a zoo with a greater capacity (Oklahoma City, National, Los Angeles, etc) or attempt to add two more females to meet upcoming AZA regulations?
I will answer my own question! Baton Rouge is yet another small zoo getting out of the elephant business, as its solitary female will soon be sent to the $50 million new Elephant Trails complex at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Well, they will soon have zero elephants so technically they will have gotten rid of their last elephant. The zoo's director admits that the current enclosure can only hold 2 elephants and thus the zoo will need millions of dollars to upgrade/renovate/expand the current paddock in order to hold a minimum of 3 elephants. Another option is to build a brand-new exhibit (costing even more millions of dollars) or get out of the elephant business altogether. That seems by far the most likely outcome, even though Baton Rouge Zoo without elephants seems odd after all of these years.
Hopefully that comes to fruition although the zoo should really focus on improving its existing (and often very poor) animal exhibits. It took years to raise $5 million for Realm of the Tiger (which opened in 2010) and I'm amazed that African Elephants are a genuine target for the future. Whatever comes to pass the zoo will go years without elephants and we'll have to wait and see if they come back one day.
