I think your assessment raises an interesting question though: In climates where during four or more months of the year elephants will spend most part of a day indoors, how do you justify offering less than 10% of the outdoor space to elephants indoors. Can a "barn" with less than 1000 m2 for the elephants really offer adequate space for an entire herd & bulls - or should zoos in temperate climates drop the barn concept and strive for a new standard of indoor enclosures which are an order of magnitude larger such as Zurich's or Köln's? If you look at Köln, this doesn't even have to be overly expensive.
I think elephants need both: a lot of space outside and, depending on the climate, an indoor enclosure that not just has small stalls, but a paddock with sand flooring and again, depending on the climate, a pool.
Why not giving them both? Why should the space of the indoor enclosure limit the size of the outdoor enclosure? Would the elephants in PLanckendael be better off if they had only 1/10 of the outdoor space just so that you can say "the elephants have almost as much space inside as outside"?
Elephants, unlike great apes, really LIKE spending time outside! Planckendael`s indoor enclosure is not as big as Zurich`s, but it is in no way small, has full sand floor and a huge indoor pool. Considering that winters in Belgium are not nearly as cold as in Switzerland, I rate what they have as great. Zurich really needs a big indoor area, especially since they want to keep two bulls and have problems within the female herd, but again, why not add a large outdoor area?
Btw: The elephant facility in Cologne is 10 years old and if you take inflation into consideration, it WAS overly expensive (and not that well done...).
Now I've seen the exhibit by myself-it is well done-indoors and outdoors-full of structure and countless feeding places and other things for behaviour enrichment, but outdoors DEFENITELY too small. there is so much free space sourrounding the elephant park, which is planed for an african savannah, but it is so much, it would'nt be a Problem, to give the elephants more space outdoors.By the way-in the afternoon, the herd was inside, while"Maxi", the breeding bull, was in the herd enclosure for the night."Thai" was, I guess, in the bull enclosure, which isn't visible to the public. I always ask me, why ? So the bulls can bore them to death ?
With a record 1.4 million visitors in 2014, annual attendance increased by over 340'000 or 32% and ticketing revenues increased by 6.5 million CHF or 50% in comparison to the previous year. These increases are credited in large part to the new elephant park, according to the zoo's annual report.
It seems that the elephant park will also turn out to be a commercial success with additional revenues far exceeding increased costs. The elephant park was entirely financed by private donors.
