Reid Park Zoo Expedition Tanzania

Tamani will like come to Cleveland after our African Elephant Crossing exhibit opens. We are also getting Willy, a 32 year old bull from Disney who will come once the weather starts to cooperate.
 
Does anyone know which San Diego elephant cows will be moving to Tucson?

The herd is presently split as Msholo/Swazi/Lungile/Umoya and Mabu/Ndlula/Litsemba/Umngani for breeding, so could it be one of these units?
 
I am pretty sure they have decided, someone at the staff a while ago even showed me a picture of the two that have been chosen, but I have no idea what their names are.
 
@ Kelvin, the WAP elephant herd has not been split. All of the cows have been introduced to Msholo and they place different cows on exhibit with Msholo day by day. They are taking it a day at a time to see how it goes. As recently as Friday, all of the cows were in with Mabu.

@Arizona Docent, I can't believe the WAP has definitely decided which cows will go to Tucson a year or more from now when your exhibit is ready to open. A lot will most certainly depend on who is pregnant at the time, how many calves Msholo sires and by who, etc.
 
kelvin said:
what will happen to Connie and Shaba?
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Shaba is our african elephant (and the younger of the two). She will definitely be introduced to the others in the new exhibit.

Connie is our asian elephant (and the older of the two). Her future is still being determined. She may be put in the new exhibit to live out her final years or she may be transferred to an all-asian herd at another zoo. I don't think the zoo will make an announcement until the time of the exhibit opening.

(Off the record, I have a pretty good idea which way it will go, but I don't want to say anything until the zoo makes an official decision and announcement).
 
polar bear said:
@ Kelvin, the WAP elephant herd has not been split. All of the cows have been introduced to Msholo and they place different cows on exhibit with Msholo day by day. They are taking it a day at a time to see how it goes. As recently as Friday, all of the cows were in with Mabu.
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sorry, I just assumed that only Swazi, Lungile and Umoya had been introduced from what I took from the video on the blog.
 
The zoo website now has some aerial photos of the construction site. The last two show the entire zoo - boy it sure looks small from the air! (In fact, the last photo actually shows a good section of the neighboring park so only part of that is the zoo). When you are done scrolling, hit your escape key to get out.
Expedition Tanzania in High Gear – Reid Park Zoo, Tucson, AZ


In response to what will happen with our current two elephants, one african and one asian: the asian will be sent to San Diego Zoo and the african will be integrated into the new herd at our exhibit.
 
mstickmanp said:
Thanks for the link AD. Also, what will happen to the old elephant exhibit?
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At this point, no one knows for sure. The original master plan shows it as an Australia area (which we currently do not have). But that plan is a general guideline and is not set in stone. Several of us docents have asked what will happen and have been told no decisions will be made until after the elephants have been moved out.
 
Although not final, it appears that Vus'musi might be one of the elephants transferred to Tucson.

Elephant swap planned for San Diego, Tucson zoos - latimes.com

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times
July 31, 2011, 8:23 p.m.
Reporting from San Diego—
Vus'musi, a 4,500-pound, 7-year-old African elephant, was having his morning regimen with Curtis Lehman, a senior elephant keeper at the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park.

Lehman held out treats for Vus'musi — who got his name, roughly translated as "to build a family," from the king of Swaziland. The mammoth mammal snatched the treats with his trunk and stuffed them into his mouth.

On command, the elephant turned this way and that for Lehman to inspect his tail, his flanks, his anus, his tusks and his feet. A strong metal fence was between elephant and keeper at all times, a practice known as protected contact.

Lehman's voice was melodic, soothing; in San Diego, the days of keepers barking out commands at elephants are long gone.

Watching closely were two animal specialists from Reid Park Zoo in Tucson: supervisor Sue Tygielski and elephant keeper Cassie Rogge. Their attention alternated between Vus'musi and Lehman.

Soon, several elephants from Safari Park will pack up their trunks and be moved to Reid Park Zoo as part of a breeding loan. In exchange, Reid Park Zoo will send an aging Asian elephant to San Diego to join the herd at the zoo there.

The week's goal was for Tygielski and Rogge to watch Lehman and other keepers. But it was also for them to bond with Vus'musi and the other elephants, and vice versa.

It's a slow process. There will be other visits before the transfer is made later this year.

Elephants know when keepers are scared, timid or faking it, Lehman said. Some keepers are good with elephants, others not.

"It's all about the relationship between elephant and keeper," said Lehman. "You have to develop trust, on both sides. You have to be genuine, to have your heart in it."

For reasons of genetics and temperament, Vus'musi is a good candidate to be among those elephants included in the transfer. He was sired in Swaziland and born in San Diego. Soon he'll be ready to do his part in procreation.

San Diego and Tucson officials have yet to pick the traveling herd, but it will probably include cows, calves and a bull — four or five elephants in all. The loan will be open ended; any offspring will belong to the Safari Park.

The 1,800-acre Safari Park — once known as the Wild Animal Park — has 17 elephants, more than any other zoo or animal facility in the United States.

The 17-acre Reid Park Zoo is expanding by 7 acres, including a 3-acre area for elephants to be known as Expedition Tanzania. The expansion, costing $9.6 million, is slated for completion in January.

The elephant probably will not replace the anteater as the zoo's logo animal, but elephant images are already appearing on a billboard outside the zoo that promises: Something Big Is Coming.

Jeff Andrews, animal care manager for San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, said San Diego officials have been approached by several zoos about an elephant loan.

The Reid Park Zoo was selected, he said, because its elephant management plan is similar to San Diego's: no hitting, no screaming, no negative reinforcement.

Zoos that use the old style need not apply, Andrews said.

At its groundbreaking ceremony, Reid Park officials promised to "closely mirror the training and husbandry techniques utilized in San Diego."

The San Diego zoo shifted to the new style of elephant handling in the mid-1990s after decades of the old style that depended on keeper dominance and punishment. Andrews has become one of the leading exponents of the system that requires keepers to get voluntary compliance from elephants.

In 1988 the zoo was fined by federal officials for its rough treatment of an elephant. In 1991, an animal keeper at the then-Wild Animal Park was killed when she was caught between two male elephants.

Some animal rights activists believe that keeping elephants in captivity is cruel, even with the protected contact system. A lawsuit attempted to block the recent expansion of the elephant facility at the Los Angeles Zoo. Activists opposed the Reid Park expansion as well.

Elephants are not new to Reid Park Zoo. The park has two aging females: a 30-year-old African (Shaba) and a 42-year-old Asian (Connie).

But the Safari Park herd, from which the Reid Park loan animals will be selected, has lusty males, protective cows, babies, and a range of personalities from docile to frisky and off-putting.

After his morning session with his keeper, Vus'musi was chased by a big cow and her baby, apparently jealous of the attention he was receiving.

"They're all amazing," Tygielski said.
Click to expand...
 
This is a huge find - thank you MstickmanP!!! And, as the article puts it, I am glad to see we will be getting a "lusty male!" :D
 
Here is a video I just found, although it looks like it was posted over two months ago. (The construction site has come a long way since this was filmed). The five minute clip talks both about the overall elephant exhibit and also quite a bit about the new steel elephant sculpture.

 
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Once the ele exhibit is finished, at some point do you think more African savanna species exhibits will be added to the new section of the zoo? Cheetahs maybe?
 
Hopefully David not Reticulated Giraffe, Grant's Zebra, Greater Kudu, and Thompson Gazelle. Every zoo has those.

Hartebeast, Wildebeast, Masai Giraffe, Topi, Grevy's Zebra, Lesser Kudu, would be better choices
 
There is no additional room for other exhibits (and we already have grevys zebra FYI). However, the exhibit is being built with a chute (for lack of a better word) at the opposite end as where the elephant barn is. This is for a potential future addition of a hoofstock barn at the end of the chute (which will be left as a small area of ground in the meantime). If it happens, the hoofstock would be in the main exhibit with the elephants (and how cool would that be?).
 
We are going to mix our hoofstock and white rhinos at Birmingham (AL) with our elephants. We have Giraffe, Zebra, Tommy's, and Kudu. I think they are going to put the Kudu on the yard with the younger elephants.
 
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