Oregon Zoo - Asian Elephant

August 2008. All three times that I've visited the zoo there has been a male elephant in this unbelievably tiny area. The zoo now has 7 elephants on 1.5 acres, and has to split up the sexes and thus contain the pachyderms in puny spaces. This elephant went back and forth with his head as if he would rather be absolutely anywhere than a tiny, all-concrete, iron-barred jail cell. Brutal cage, but plans are afoot to transform the elephant exhibit into a 6 acre habitat.

Wow, and I thought Billy had a bad life here in LA.

That is far too small for a bull and they really does look like a real jail cell. They need to transform this dungeon into a state-of-the-art barn with heat and padded flooring with substrate. That bare concrete is doing nothing but harm.

Hopefully with the new, 6-acre elephant paddock the Oregon Zoo will create a large area for their bulls. Too often male elephants receive very little space in zoos.

Honestly, it only looks like a prison to a person. All animals at the zoo have an offexhibit area that is not nearly as pretty as the part of the zoo the guests see. I'm an intern at the oregon zoo, and have worked with almost all of the animals there. The large majority of the animals prefer the less pretty, more functional back areas, where there are no pretty stones or trees, but instead, concrete floors and bars. Being 'pretty' is something most animals could care les about.
The reason the elephants are in "jails" is because there is not much besides bars that big that could hold an animal as big as Rama. Plexi glass is much prettier, but is useless against a bull elephant, and also limits even more the contact a trainer can have with his animal. The males are seperated from the females at almost all times, for both safety and mental health reasons. It is not safe for the females, or Samudra, to be around the males, because the males are more agressive, and much stronger. Also, it limits the amount of contact a trainer can have with a female elephant (they are allowed free contact, whiles males are limited contact). Also, zoos try to simulate wild behaviour as much as possible. In the wild, female groups are never in contact with adult males, aside from breeding season. So, it does not make sense to force them to be placed together in captivity, as this would not be normal behaviour.
However, the males are not kept in the same small holding exhibit constantly. There are several large areas the public cannot see that elephants are held in. Also, all of the elephants are rotated throughout the different areas through the day and night. If you see one elephant in one area, chances are he will not be there two hours later.
Also, a large percentage of the Asian elephants born in captivity are males. Since all males must be housed seperatly (due to agression caused by must), the amount of space allotted to the elephants must be cut into fewer pieces. Ensuring our animals are safe and happy is the zoos top priority, and becuse of that, lots of money goes into programs like VET (volunteer enrichment team), to ensure our animals are never bored. There are plans to house some of the elephants in an offsite area, and to give the ones at the zoo much more space.
PLEASE, BEFORE YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT HOW A ZOO TREATS ITS ANIMALS, DO YOUR RESEARCH!!

@Maddy Moo: thank you for your informative response to this photo, and you are obviously quite passionate about the elephants at the Oregon Zoo. However, having male elephants separated and moved around does not in any way compensate for the fact that for decades the zoo has had what I would call a tiny pachyderm paddock. There is a reason why a proposed 6 acre exhibit is being pursued, as well as an off-exhibit breeding area. The current elephant enclosure is what many would consider far too small for the world's largest land mammals.

You are correct in everything that you say, and it is all information that I was aware of in the first place. It is wonderful that the Oregon Zoo rotates its elephants, it is well understood here on ZooChat that males are almost always separated from females, but in terms of space I find the elephant exhibit to be shockingly inadequate. Due to the fact that so many of the elephants are separated from others it means that the space available to an individual elephant is far, far too small. Thank goodness improvements will eventually be made!