Thanks for your comments, I did tweak the exposure to show the ears better hence the slightly weak colours on the photo (It was a little dark originally.).
Have always throught it was a great shame that ZSL. decided to put this fine bull down, instead of rehomeing him, bearing in mind a collection in the U.k. offered him an home.
I would be suprised if there was a genuine chance of rehoming Jumbo, as he was a large bull showing signs of musth. It is I believe unlikely that a suitable home for him would have been vacant for him just to have been moved into. His home at Whipsnade obviously was not ideal as he grew older, and it would not have been an easy decision or one which was taken lightly.
I would be interested to know which zoo was offering to take Jumbo
The female asian elephant Kumara was moved to Chester prior to the arrival of new elephants that form the basis of the current herd.
A genuine forest elephant... Jealous much?
Could you imagine the uproar now if a zoo tried to put down a bull because they couldn't handle him? The animal rights groups would go absolutely mental!
Why did ZSL stop having African elephants? Was it as simple that their African elephants died or were moved and the decision was made to just focus on Asian elephants? This seemed to be what happened at the Los Angeles Zoo.
The decision was taken in the 1980s to move towards Asian elephants, as being the rarer species. What is very sad is that at the start of that decade ZSL possessed 0:2 African bush and 0:1 Asian at RP, plus 1:0 African forest, 0:1 African bush and 0:1 Asian at Whipsnade. All of these animals were twenty-something at most in 1980, and not one was bred from.
Serious errors were made in elephant management on both sites in that decade, which did much to foster the virulent anti-zoo sentiment that is still dogging the UK to this day. Arguably ZSL is still spooked by it.
The decision was taken in the 1980s to move towards Asian elephants, as being the rarer species. What is very sad is that at the start of that decade ZSL possessed 0:2 African bush and 0:1 Asian at RP, plus 1:0 African forest, 0:1 African bush and 0:1 Asian at Whipsnade. All of these animals were twenty-something at most in 1980, and not one was bred from.
Serious errors were made in elephant management on both sites in that decade, which did much to foster the virulent anti-zoo sentiment that is still dogging the UK to this day. Arguably ZSL is still spooked by it.
Thanks Ian. Bad elephant management seems to have been fairly pervasive in several places (San Francisco being a prominent example over here). Hopefully more enlightened elephant management and better exhibits will start to make zoos more effective elephant care providers and conservationists for their wild cousins.
