elephants in uk

[Cat-Man]

when i went to whipsnade the eles there had spots of there trunk, while most other colections they dont seem to Why is this?
how come whipsnade has grass in its elephant paddok, while chester dosn't

 

[Zambar]

How come Knowsley has grass in it's paddock, and Colchester doesn't? How come Port Lymnpe has grass in it's paddock and Paignton doesn't? It's all a matter of the zoo's preference.

 

[James27]

And it's easier to keep grass in a larger paddock, Whipsnade's paddock is 3.5 times larger than Chester's.
And I know what you mean about the spots, they sort of have a yellow tinge to them. I think they might be a different subspecies as ISIS lists them separately (E.g- Sri Lankan, Indian etc)

 

[CZJimmy]

Chester tried to grow grass in a section of their paddock (must've been 5-6 years ago) but hasn't been tried since (to my knowledge) so it mustn't have been successful

 

[taun]

There a few reason why chester will struggle to keep their elephants enclosure completely grassy.

1) The enclosure needs resting for a couplee of years for them to beable to grow much on it, withoit another enclosure this would never happen.
2) The soil is mostly clay and therefore a layer of topsoil would need adding and being cultavated for a few years.
3) The enclosure has thous step sides that the elephants walk up and down and they would dislodge any thing that hadn't had years to grow on them slopes.

Just look at the asian plains enclosure, they have struggling to keep grass on that with only two large animals.