This is Bodhi, a four and a half year old bull. He was born on 4-16-04 to Phoebe and Coco. He currently weighs 4,700 lbs and is 6 feet tall at his highest point. We expect him to be almost as tall as his dad, if not larger. Most bulls aren't thrown out of their natal group until they go through musth in their teens. Bodhi started musth when he was three so he matured very quickly. The pool he is playing in is about 12 feet deep and holds 33,000 gallons. The north yard in the background is about two acres.
This is a great shot of what appears to be an extremely deep pool. After visiting the Columbus Zoo in the summer I have to say that they have one of the better elephant exhibits in North America, including the largest barn of any zoo on the continent. The outdoor paddocks are spacious and naturalistic, and I only wish that they would put some natural substrate indoors instead of that damn cement.
@ snowleopard: I actually had an hour long conversation with our head keeper about using substrate. I knew the answer I guess it just never clicked. We don't use substrate because we clean EVERY room of the pachyderm building every day. We remove uneaten food and straw, soap it, and rinse it. If we added substrate it would take days to clean the building. Plus enough substrate to cover 41,000 square feet would cost a lot if we had to replace it every day. The cement is actually rough, so it cleans the elephants feet by removing dead skin. You would think it would cut or wound the foot but it doesn't (Which REALLY surprised me!) All of the floors are also extremely uneven, to allow for drainage but also to prevent arthritis and joint pain. While I think substrate would look better, in our case I think cement floors work well. I also asked a vet if there had an problems on elephants or rhinos regarding the floors and she said not at all.
