India's Richest Family Building World's Largest Zoo

[OkapiJohn]

200 freaking elephants? Can’t they share some of them and their other rarities to other facilities around the globe? That would be neat. Sharing is caring!

Oh yeah, let's get excited over smuggling!

At least EAZA zoos have made clear for many different circumstances that Vantara is not a partner. And I hope it continues like that for many many years. It's a smuggling operation not a zoo.
But there are here people for which a rarety is more important than wildlife conservation or animal welfare.

 

[merlin]

It's a TV show... Do you also believe that Disney movies are real?
Now, more seriously, in a TV show they manipulate what they let you see. A facility that smuggles exotic animals will never have my trust.

I guess the show won't be so different from Forrest's YouTube videos...

 

[PossumRoach]

There is currently a show on Animal Planet hosted by Forest Gallante called:
Vantara tales from the sanctuary. I know there is a lot of controversy about how at least
some of the animals have been accumulated (perhaps even illegally) but there does not
appear to be any doubt they are receiving a high degree of care and resources. One stat that completely floored me was they said that they had 7 kitchens and 300 staff in those 7 kitchens to service the animals. That is more than most Zoos have staff total! I may have misheard but they said they process 25 tons of food per day, but that doesn't seem to make sense as they would need something like 40 tons per day just to feed their 200 elephants. Maybe that doesn't include
fodder like hay or browse.
They have not mentioned any breeding success, though they have off hand mentioned breeding programs.

I can’t be the only person who is having violent thoughts about this. Like forget the ethics, morals, and other mushy feel-good stuff that are being violated here. We are watching some YouTube hack and billionaire big-boy show off a place no one will ever get to see, a perfect example of cartmanlanding.