Elephant Exhibit Flooring: What do you prefer and are zoos doing it right?

[Moebelle]

It came to my understanding that both species of elephants live in dense grasslands and I was wondering it zoos were doing it right. Africans live in the tall savannah grass and sand while Asians actually live the dense rainforest where they rarely go out onto a large, flat field. Should zoos change their usual flat, non-rainforest, barely sandy flooring in their exhibits, or keep it the same? What do you prefer? I also know that zoos probably do this to make it easier for the keepers to clean the elephants' feet but let's say that wasn't the case.

 

[mazfc]

I think variety should be offered

 

[karoocheetah]

I agree with Maz - variety is the spice of life - but definately not concrete!

 

[AnaheimZoo]

I agree with mazfc. For Asian and African elephants, I would use a mixture of soft, almost wet, grass, some sand and dirt piles for them to roll in (so it acts as flooring and enrichment), and long grass that they could occasionally eat if they wanted to.

@karoocheetah- You must've posted mere seconds before my post; there was only mazfc's comment there when I began typing.

 

[karoocheetah]

I agree with mazfc. For Asian and African elephants, I would use a mixture of soft, almost wet, grass, some sand and dirt piles for them to roll in (so it acts as flooring and enrichment), and long grass that they could occasionally eat if they wanted to.

@karoocheetah- You must've posted mere seconds before my post; there was only mazfc's comment there when I began typing.

speedy fingers

 

[Jarkari]

Elephants can live in a huge variety of environments from deserts to thick rainforest so agreee. variety is essential. however long grass would never last more than a couple of days. the african elephant exhibit at Taronga Western Plains zoo is quite bland and empty looking but also very large. she is also taken for walks in an off exhibit area of 300ish acres before the zoo opens where she has access to long grass, trees and all sorts of entertaining things for an elephant.

 

[dartboard]

To support Jarkari's statement, I think you'd find if you started putting more simple vegetation in an elephant exhibit, i.e. more grasses and non-woody species (ones that would not harm an elephant's feet), that they would be destroyed rather rapidly. With the elephants being confined to the exhibit, they would continue to walk over the vegetation unlike they would in the wild where they could move on, and the vegetation would be very short lived!

Nonetheless, I'm all for variation in exhibit design! I would love to get to re-live my time in India where traveling through the forest and all of a sudden we came upon an elephant herd slowly crashing through the trees!

 

[Johnny]

It is possible to bring variety into an elephant exhibit, but the problem is to keep the vegetation intact. Sand is the best solution imo, and zoo's are already starting to use this in the indoor enclosures. Unfortunately, there are zoo's where this is almost impossible ( emmen and rotterdam for example) in the current situation.

 

[AnaheimZoo]

For enrichment, instead of using a living tree, which would be destroyed rather quickly, I'd put a dead tree in there for them to play with, i.e, to push around and to pick up. Although I don't think this would stop them from messing around with the other trees:

As we've stated here, maintaining the grasses/plants would obviously be the toughest part. Is it because of irrigation being so expensive? Or is it because the elephants would eat the plants?

Dallas Zoo's Giants of the Savanna mixed exhibit is irrigated, correct? In addition to the elephants, it contains zebras and impala, two other grazing animals. And as you can see, the grass is holding up well...