Best Elephant Park in Europe?

Toddy said:
That sounds like a gang more dangerous than that of Jesse James ;). Are you having a lot of trouble with the animal rights organizations in America (PETA and such)?
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yes, it's a huge distraction. They have successfully pressured several zoos (Detroit, Philadelphia come to mind) to get rid of their elephants. The L.A. Zoo is under terrific pressure. All a media war, in reality, but quite effective.

And the Christmas tiger escape/visitor death at the SF Zoo has given the anti-zoo groups lots to work with.
 
I will repeat myself on this thread: approximately 17 zoos and counting no longer exhibit elephants in North America. What will that total be in a decade? 30 zoos getting rid of elephants in one continent? One has to wonder how much longer all of the numerous European zoos with barren elephant enclosures will sustain their captive poplulations...
 
Hi,

I know of no elephant exhibit in Europe which has naturalistic both inside and outside yard.

Indoor houses I know of:
Dresden has nice tropical hall (see Zoolex website).
Rotterdam has attractive fake trees.
Dvur Kralove, judging from photos, has interesting building for it's African elephants with fake baobab tree. Warsaw also has such tree.
Leipzig seems interesting from photos.

Outside enclosures? I guess some safari park with huge grassy area.
Berlin zoo has several old oaks protected by wooden tubes, as well as a patch of trees protected by a wire. Overall, very pleasant. This zoo is generally marvel of design.
Heidelberg has carefuly designed protected vegetation, mixed exhibit with deer and nice pool.
Basel African yard stricken me as interesting, although barren. Has well designed rocks and tree trunks recalling dry season in Namibia (theme of this part of the zoo). And occupied stork nest on top of the tree trunk in the middle of the yard!

Overall, I agree that good elephant enclosures are still a future. BTW: did you see that? http://www.leszoosdanslemonde.com/html/etudes_zoologiques/elephants_dyczkowski_11_2006.pdf

For snowleopard:
In Europe at least 20 zoos stopped keeping elephants. About 20 zoos have space and buildings and breeding herds. Several zoos have non-breeding herds of aging females and juvenile bulls. I guess in the next 10 years there might be 40 zoos which stopped keeping elephants and 30-40 zoos with breeding herds.

You can see nicely dynamics of asian elephants in Europe on Zoo Elephant - Asian Elephants at the Zoological Gardens of the World I wonder if any enthusiast wants to make the same website for African elephants?
 
Zooplantman, a lot of the zoos already mentioned have big grass yards for their elephant herds - Whipsnade, Howlets, Port Lmypne, Beauval for example. But usually just grass and no trees or bushes which makes the enclosures relatively barren. Not that elephants need trees to climb, but some "islands" of protected patches of vegetation are very useful for elephant exhibits in my opinion, that looks very nice and gives the elephants shade and a more structured enclosure with possibilities to get out of each other`s view.
 
I seem to remember Colchester Zoo(Africans) have attempted something like this in the outside paddocks with a couple of big 'islands' -earth mounds surrounded by huge rocks with trees and bushes growing from the top - designed to be out of reach of the elephants to stop them being destroyed. The enclosures are otherwise very flat but these rocky outcrops do break up the landscape a bit for the inhabitants though not attractive to look at.
 
@Jurek7: I agree with you. I suppose that as many more zoos stop exhibiting elephants there will also be just as many expanding enclosures or creating viable breeding herds. It would be nice to see an elephant exhibit that was actually truly great...as it is tough to find one that suits the needs of such a large mammal.
 
I always enjoy elephant enclosures with protected green areas. The one in Berlin is, although small, a shining eksample of that sort of exhibit design.
 
You all have given me a terrific list to investigate! Thanks
(By which I do NOT mean for anyone to stop.....Please keep going!)
 
@Jurek7: Been to Dvur-the elephant exhibit isn't really spectacular (just "window-dressing" actually) and pretty small. The best idea in educational sense they had is keeping the hyrax in the same building and having a mammuth statue.
 
Funny, Warsaw also has hyrax in elephant house. They first wanted a pool with elephant seals, but scaled down their plan a little!

Yes, exhibits often look different on pictures than in real life.

@snowleopard: EU regulations demand to keep elephants in groups. Some old ones stay alone, but most animals will be in herds.
 
@Jurek7: you bring up a good point with your reference to EU regulations. Here in North America there are also laws forbidding zoos from keeping only a single elephant, and yet many organizations flaunt those rules and do as they please. The Alaska Zoo finally moved Maggie last year, who lived for years all alone in freezing temperatures. Edmonton's Valley Zoo in Canada currently has a single elephant named Lucy, and there are at least two more zoos in the U.S. (San Antonio might be one of them) that only have a solitary elephant. No wonder there are so many reports of animal rights groups complaning about poor treatment of these animals.

With the death of a pregnant female elephant, as well as her unborn baby, at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas yesterday that means more ammunition for people against elephants in captivity.
 
is Zoo Beauval the zoo where Longleat's Elephants went to?

The enclosure looks similar to the one that was shown on 'Animal Park' (The TV series)...
 
Wow, that look's like a really cool enclosure :cool:
 
Size does matter when it comes to elephant exhibits, as the larger the enclosure the more room they have to explore. With so many pachyderms suffering from foot ailments in captivity, it is terrific to see the Beauval Zoo's large enclosure. Of course enrichment is crucial to the success of captive elephants, but being able to roam a decent-sized exhibit cuts back on the number of arthritic and degenerative foot disorders.
 
It's wonderful to see the animals in a large enclosure on grass, but it is not an attractive scene to me. There is no need to forsake good design. The bolder lines may be a problem waiting to happen as well as hideous. (sorry)
 
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