Ida Worst Zoos For Eles 2007

jurek - the angles in your arguments are so warped that i'm afraid i feel i can't have a rational discussion with you.

elephants in zoos forms a permanent argument on this forum and has done for years. there are so many people on your side of the fence that put up more intelligent arguments than you.

oh and for what its worth, since YOU started babbling about the conservation efforts of these zoos, the onus is on YOU to prove it. don't tell me to google buddy.
 
It is true that the Anchorage Zoo has never had AZA accreditation. The zoo that claims to be the most northern zoo in North America with accreditation is the Calgary Zoo. Perhaps their high latitude justifies an Arctic/Antarctic exhibit?
 
According to AZA Elephant TAG standards outdoor elephant yards need only be 1,800 square feet for an individual and an additional 900 square feet for each additional individual.
Indoor facilities need to be about 400 square feet per individual. Bulls or cows with calves need a minimum of 600 square feet.
A Zoo with 4 female elephants only needs an outdoor exhibit of 4,500 square feet or a tenth of an acre and indoor facilities of 1,600 square feet to meet AZA standards :eek:!

If an institution doesn't meet these standards it can petition for a variance :eek:!

Apparently I could keep four elephants on my property if my roofs were higher and still meet AZA space requirements :rolleyes:!
 
It would help everybody, Patrick, if you read messages to the end. The link is at the bottom of the mail.
 
Solutions?

As has been stated in this thread and others on this site and elsewhere, this is an issue which will always polarise opinion.......there appears to be very little middle ground here......and emotions inevitably run high.

Personally, I am not one who thinks it fundamentally wrong to keep elephants in captivity (indeed, I suspect that at some time in the future, despite some stirling efforts, that captive elephants will be the only elephants) but do strongly support the view that their living conditions be more than adequate. It is unfortunate indeed that we have so many elephants in captivity across the world and that only a very small minority are kept in conditions which attract no valid criticism.

So what do we do now???? The authors of the 'top 10' would have us close down the US facilities highlighted but also strongly frowns upon the moving of individuals from zoo to zoo. This does not leave many options......?
 
Bigger frickin' enclosures!! That is the answer, plain and simple. Pile in the enrichment devices and have a team of keepers working with a decent-sized herd. If a zoological establishment cannot have acres and acres of space for a group of pachyderms then turn them over to somewhere that does have the space. PAWS or Tennessee are two Sanctuaries that have thousands of acres of space for the elephants to roam around in at their own pace. Has anyone seen photos from those places? Their websites are both quite informative, and the life that the elephants lead there is something that urban zoo elephants are sadly missing out on.

Chester Zoo has 7 elephants on 2 tiny acres, Oregon Zoo has 6 or 7 elephants on 2 acres, Taronga has them crammed like sardines on .5 of an acre. Some zoo visitors think that as long as the exhibit looks multi-layered and with running water then everything is fine, but the opposite is the truth. I realize that this is a contentious issue, but as I've said before on here all of us combined cannot even come up with 10 half-decent elephant exhibits. There are 80 enclosures in North America and probably 75 of them should be used to house different mammals.
 
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An awesome piece of design theory that I am a big supporter of is Exhibit Rotation and Elephants would be the best to benifit from this. All the exhibits are large and a number of elephants are in different enclosures or the elephants are in one enclosure and other less distructive species are kept in the other pens. This would be very benificial for those zoos who find it hard to give one species so much space. There are two US zoos that incorporate the later of the rotation designs - Louisville and Pt Defiance (tacoma) - but on a smaller scale.

While the elephants may only have for example 2 acres at a time, the 2 acres may be different every month or so...that way the pens have some time to recover.
 
I don`t think it is fundamentally wrong to keep elephants in captivity neither. And I do consider 2 acres as a good size for an elephant enclosure. That`s 4 times more then Taronga and I think with good enrichment and good enclosure design, it`s possible to keep a family group of elephants happy and entertained in this amount of space.

Something that is often forgotten when it comes to elephants and especially foot health is that the amount of outdoor space is not the only thing that matters and maybe not even the most important point. The outdoor enclosure can be a dozend acres, if the elephants will spend prologned periods of time in small stalls with a concrete floor, they will get foot problems anyway. Chester`s outside enclosure is not the biggest (if I remember right, an expansion is planned, although not in the very near future), but their new barn is great - large area in which the elephants can walk free without being foreced to stand in their own feces, sand and rubber flooring. And they have free acess to the outside enclosure in the warmer which gives them even more space during the night.
 
@okapikpr: I wholeheartedly agree with you on the issue of rotating exhibits, and have long been a proponent of such enclosures. I've visited the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma twice, and their 5 different exhibits featuring rotating Asian animals is modern and superior to many standardized spaces for captive animals. Two species of gibbon (including siamang), sumatran tigers, malayan tapir and anoa are located in this section of the small zoo, and as a visitor one never knows which exhibit they will be currently in. The animals are sometimes shifted a couple of times per day.

@Yassa: I'm all about space in elephant exhibits, but you bring up a great point when you mention the rubber flooring. That should be included in all pachyderm exhibits, and would surely go a long way in easing foot ailments in captive elephants. But then again the Oregon Zoo has 6 or 7 elephants, and I remember reading the medical reports (from the IDA against elephants in captivity website) and seeing how many of them had for years suffered with foot disorders. I believe the the flooring indoors at the Oregon Zoo is rubberized.
 
snowleopard said:
but you bring up a great point when you mention the rubber flooring. That should be included in all pachyderm exhibits, and would surely go a long way in easing foot ailments in captive elephants. But then again the Oregon Zoo has 6 or 7 elephants, and I remember reading the medical reports (from the IDA against elephants in captivity website) and seeing how many of them had for years suffered with foot disorders. I believe the the flooring indoors at the Oregon Zoo is rubberized.
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There is also the issue of:

What type of rubber..?

Auckland Zoo's older elephant, Kashin has foot complaints which are managed regularly by the keepers... It is atributed to the fact she spent 20 of her 40 years, thus far, in a 1920s elephant house but part of the problem I think is the rubber floor in the new house (which was built in 1991)... I can't tell if the rubber floor was added after the build or thrown in as an innovation at the time but it appears to be very hard rubber only 5mm or so thick... When this is added to the fact that; the area immeaditely outside the barn is all concrete, the elephants are taken for daily walks around the zoo (on asphalt), causes me to think that all these factors may contribute to her ongoing problems... It will be interesting to see if Auckland's younger elephant, Burma (about 20) develops any similar problems... Anyway whats my point..?

I think the type of rubber used in elephant barns should be considered not just the fact it is present...
 
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I think a thick layer of sand is much better then rubber; rubber should only be used in a part of the barn to have an area where the eles can be given a shower ect.

Regarding Oregon, I have no idea what kind of rubber flooring they are using, but even the softest rubber floor won`t help much when the particular elephant has spend 20 or 30+ years on concrete exposed to urine and feces, and has already very serious health problems due to that.
 
Yassa said:
I think a thick layer of sand is much better then rubber; rubber should only be used in a part of the barn to have an area where the eles can be given a shower ect.
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Why..?

What zoos is sand used at and how do their elephants fair better..?
 
Chester use sand in the majority of their indoor quarters. It is even banked against a wall to prevent any skin damage whilst sleeping.

I'm not sure of health conditions, but there are regular foot check-ups...
 
Hmm interesting, I've heard that there are some health benefits to provide elephants very large logs in enclosures also...

Just an interesting fact, elephant keeping is the most dangerous job in North America, with something around 1 in 550 killed annually...
 
@NZ Jeremy: that elephant statistic is correct, and not many non-zoo fans probably realize how dangerous it is to work with such enormous mammals. The danger factor, the cost factor, and the ethical factor are all reasons why so many zoos have stopped exhibiting elephants.

Another interesting statistic that many animal lovers already know: more people living in Africa die from hippos than crocodiles. Amazing but apparently true.
 
snowleopard said:
The danger factor, the cost factor, and the ethical factor are all reasons why so many zoos have stopped exhibiting elephants.
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In most large metropolitan areas or marquee zoos, elephants aren't going anywhere I don't think...

Lets hope elephant exhibit design is the next zoo revolution...

snowleopard said:
Another interesting statistic that many animal lovers already know: more people living in Africa die from hippos than crocodiles. Amazing but apparently true.
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Hippos are number 1 in killing people, (except for other humans of course)!
 
@NZ Jeremy: you don't think that zoos in large, metropolitan areas are going anywhere? What about enormously populated cities like San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, and eventually New York City? The first 3 got rid of their elephants, and the Bronx Zoo is waiting for theirs to die out. I think that the number is around 17, which are the zoos just in North America that have now stopped exhibiting elephants. You can't get much larger than the cities that I named...

Also, of the 78 zoos that have elephants in North America, about 40 of them have recently done (or are in the process of) renovating, expanding or designing new elephant exhibits. The problem is simply that the new enclosures being constructed are still far too small...and the enclosures that are increased in size then contain double the original number of elephants! It defeats the purpose of giving the pachyderms extra space.
 
snowleopard said:
@NZ Jeremy: you don't think that zoos in large, metropolitan areas are going anywhere? What about enormously populated cities like San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, and eventually New York City? The first 3 got rid of their elephants, and the Bronx Zoo is waiting for theirs to die out. I think that the number is around 17, which are the zoos just in North America that have now stopped exhibiting elephants. You can't get much larger than the cities that I named...
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I'm well aware of those examples, thats why I used the qualifier "most"... I was refering to places like San Diego and San Diego WAP, Berlin Zoo, Chester, etc... They have traditionally have had relatively small elephant enclosures, they will not give up their elephants anytime soon and will most likely build exhibits just large enough to keep the majority off people off their backs...
 
@NZ Jeremy: you're right about the major zoos that you mentioned, as I doubt that many of them will give up their prized elephants. San Diego Zoo has of course finally decided to do something about their 30 or 40 year old tiny elephant exhibit, and in 2009 the $40 million "Elephant Odyssey" opens...with many more animals than just elephants. I just think that with the demand on zoos nowadays to increase elephant enclosures, what will it be like in another decade? People think that a couple of acres is too small now, but will zoos have the money or space to build 5-10 acre exhibits? The North Carolina zoo has a brand new, 7 acre elephant enclosure alongside an approximately 30 acre African Savannah enclosure...now that's the way to go!
 
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