Elephant Graveyard is the newest section of the zoo and opened in late 2021. This large area took CCZ’s old elephant habitats and surrounding area and turned it into something magical. This area is by far the most heavily themed in the zoo, following the myth of the elephant graveyard showing off the famous African Elephant along with many other African animals often associated with death and scavenging.
The start of the section is across from the aforementioned lion habitat where you will find a large tunnel made of artificial bones which will lead you to the main area. Jutting out from the side of the tunnel is another path that leads to the Nursery, a small building that hence its name is the main baby hospital in the zoo. A small window is also in the front allowing the visitors to see some of the baby animals.
(23)
The other side of the tunnel leads you to a vista of CCZ’s largest habitat for fittingly the largest land animal, the
African Elephant. The elephants live in two separate yards, the one here is for the females of which the zoo owns 4 which live in this large yard decorated with artificial bones to represent the graveyard theme, some of the bones are also hallow and are used as a sort of enrichment feeders for the animals as well. The yard connects to their indoor space as well which can be viewed from the elephant barn right next to the viewing allowing the elephants to be seen year round this also allows viewing of the indoor section for CCZ’s bull as well as many other smaller animals that will be shown off next tour.
(Outdoor AD) (Barn 24)
The Elephant Barn spits you out to one of two exits, the one opposite to where we came from allows viewing of both yards with more views of the females on the right and a look at the bull yard on the left. Going left allows more viewing of the bull’s yard which is similar to the other yard albeit a little smaller and contains less artificial bones.
(Bull AE)
North of the main elephant yard is the scavenging trail, a path dedicated to scavenging birds of Africa, the first aviary contains the odd looking
Marabou Stork, a bird that CCZ owns quite a few pairs of more specifically a grand total of (3.3) although this aviary only contains the main pair, while the other two are located backstage in the breeding center. The aviary also contains various mock bones like most of the exhibits in this area. The next aviary is the oddball of the four, as it contains non-scavenging birds and is walkthrough for wetland birds of Africa, more specifically
Marbled Teal, Hammerkop, African Openbill, Hadada Ibis, Egyptian Goose, African Sacred Ibis, and more
White-Faced Whistling Ducks. The last two aviaries are for vultures, more specifically the left is home to
Rupell’s Griffon Vultures and on the right
Egyptian Vultures.
(Marabou AF) (Walkthrough AG) (Griffon AH) (Egyptian AI)
The final of the three parts of the Elephant Graveyard is called The Temple Of Anubis and contains two outdoor exhibits, the first is home to
Black-Backed Jackals but I will save the description of the cage for next time since it can only be viewed from the indoor temple which I will cover next time, the other is for the famous
Spotted Hyena, CCZ owns (2.5) Hyenas as of this moment which lives in a large yard with an indoor cavern that can be viewed from the temple, this area also has the most artificial bones out of all the habitats in this area.
(Jackal AK) (Hyena AJ) (Temple 25)
The temple rounds you back to the elephant yard where you can go back through the tunnel to explore the rest of the zoo.
With that the tour of the Elephant Graveyard is over and as always feel free to leave your comments, criticisms, and advice below. Next time I will show off the two indoor buildings in here in detail before I start Vanishing Habitat: Rainforest and with that I hope to see you on our next tour of CCZ.
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