Managing Elephants in Protected Contact in Zoos was written by elephant expert Alan Roocroft, along with zoo historian Catherine de Courcy. Part autobiography, part elephant training manual, it is an exceptional book and was published this year. It is a softcover with 276 pages and 24 chapters which contain more than 250 images throughout.
The basic premise of the book is that Alan Roocroft has spent more than 55 years of his life studying and working with elephants. For approximately the first 30 years he was a supporter of free contact, but in the last 25 years he shifted over to protected contact. In many ways, his story parallels the evolution of the management of elephants in zoos. It's a truly fascinating read and a book that one could return to again and again.
Roocroft began working at Chester Zoo when he was 18 years old, and after 4 years there he then moved on to Sri Lanka for a further 4 years. By 1973 he was at Tierpark Hagenbeck, with not a penny to his name, and the zoo would have around a dozen elephants at any one time. Elephants would be trained, sent off to circuses, and more would arrive all the time. Roocroft states that "the Hagenbeck approach to the animals was always very respectful". His decade spent at Hagenbeck saw him learn the German way of training elephants, with structure, rules and clear guidelines.
After brief stints at the Catskill Game Farm, Miami Metrozoo and Pablo Escobar's Colombian compound, Roocroft ended up permanently at San Diego Wild Animal Park in 1983. There is a ton of great material from this era that is informative and mainly non-judgmental. That includes details about the daily elephant shows at the Wild Animal Park, the use of the ankus on tender "pressure points", the nightly chaining of every elephant, and other tidbits of information. Roocroft clearly fell out of love with hooks and ankuses, mainly because elephants were being abused at many zoos on a daily basis by incompetent zookeepers. After almost 20 years at SDWAP, he left to form his zoo consultancy firm that flourished until quite recently when he retired. During these years he had 10 annual elephant training conferences at Hagenbeck and was heavily involved in the transportation of 17 elephants from Swaziland (now Eswatini) in 2016 to three American zoos (Dallas, Omaha, Sedgwick County).
There is a chapter about the female African Elephant named 'Dunda', who was hit and "reprimanded" in 1988 which caused a huge scandal when the newspapers reported on the facts. That incident was the turning point for Alan Roocroft, and from there the book has many illustrations and details about early training walls for protected contact. There are entire chapters on the types of barns that have been built, the metal walls and the intricate design of the bars and holes, and how simple items in an exhibit (a scratching rock, hanging food from feeders, tree stumps) can enrich an elephant's life and ease boredom. All of this is well-written and enormously intriguing to read about.
My favourite chapter in the book is 12 pages devoted entirely to sand. Roocroft details all the painful health issues that have evolved in captive elephants from standing for hundreds of hours on cement, with elephants often not able to lie down on concrete due to the fact that they need a slope to position their enormous girth on the ground. There are generations of elephants standing and often swaying back and forth on cold, unyielding cement and Roocroft explains that one pile of natural substrate in a corner is almost useless for big elephants, as are rubber floors. Instead, elephants need a deep pile of sand to sleep on, dig for hidden food or simply to play with. He recommends a depth of several feet of sand in almost every square inch of an elephant's zoo exhibit, both indoors and outdoors.
Roocroft mentions that Safaripark Beekse Bergen (Netherlands) was possibly the first zoo to have natural indoor substrates for elephants. Amersfoort (Netherlands) is another early example, with a specific focus on Chester, Dublin and Copenhagen as well. All of those zoos have had great success with breeding and herd dynamics by incorporating massive piles of sand throughout the length and breadth of their habitats. As with so many other progressive zoo-related ideas (aviaries for flamingos, larger terrariums for reptiles, mixed-species co-existing, natural substrate with elephants), European zoos lead the way.
I would highly recommend the book. Alan Roocroft is a legendary elephant expert and he knows what he is talking about. He is brutally honest about the pitfalls of free contact and yet he endorsed that policy for decades. It wasn't until the late 1980s that he switched over to supporting protected contact, which is now the acceptable method of managing elephants in almost every western zoo.
The basic premise of the book is that Alan Roocroft has spent more than 55 years of his life studying and working with elephants. For approximately the first 30 years he was a supporter of free contact, but in the last 25 years he shifted over to protected contact. In many ways, his story parallels the evolution of the management of elephants in zoos. It's a truly fascinating read and a book that one could return to again and again.
Roocroft began working at Chester Zoo when he was 18 years old, and after 4 years there he then moved on to Sri Lanka for a further 4 years. By 1973 he was at Tierpark Hagenbeck, with not a penny to his name, and the zoo would have around a dozen elephants at any one time. Elephants would be trained, sent off to circuses, and more would arrive all the time. Roocroft states that "the Hagenbeck approach to the animals was always very respectful". His decade spent at Hagenbeck saw him learn the German way of training elephants, with structure, rules and clear guidelines.
After brief stints at the Catskill Game Farm, Miami Metrozoo and Pablo Escobar's Colombian compound, Roocroft ended up permanently at San Diego Wild Animal Park in 1983. There is a ton of great material from this era that is informative and mainly non-judgmental. That includes details about the daily elephant shows at the Wild Animal Park, the use of the ankus on tender "pressure points", the nightly chaining of every elephant, and other tidbits of information. Roocroft clearly fell out of love with hooks and ankuses, mainly because elephants were being abused at many zoos on a daily basis by incompetent zookeepers. After almost 20 years at SDWAP, he left to form his zoo consultancy firm that flourished until quite recently when he retired. During these years he had 10 annual elephant training conferences at Hagenbeck and was heavily involved in the transportation of 17 elephants from Swaziland (now Eswatini) in 2016 to three American zoos (Dallas, Omaha, Sedgwick County).
There is a chapter about the female African Elephant named 'Dunda', who was hit and "reprimanded" in 1988 which caused a huge scandal when the newspapers reported on the facts. That incident was the turning point for Alan Roocroft, and from there the book has many illustrations and details about early training walls for protected contact. There are entire chapters on the types of barns that have been built, the metal walls and the intricate design of the bars and holes, and how simple items in an exhibit (a scratching rock, hanging food from feeders, tree stumps) can enrich an elephant's life and ease boredom. All of this is well-written and enormously intriguing to read about.
My favourite chapter in the book is 12 pages devoted entirely to sand. Roocroft details all the painful health issues that have evolved in captive elephants from standing for hundreds of hours on cement, with elephants often not able to lie down on concrete due to the fact that they need a slope to position their enormous girth on the ground. There are generations of elephants standing and often swaying back and forth on cold, unyielding cement and Roocroft explains that one pile of natural substrate in a corner is almost useless for big elephants, as are rubber floors. Instead, elephants need a deep pile of sand to sleep on, dig for hidden food or simply to play with. He recommends a depth of several feet of sand in almost every square inch of an elephant's zoo exhibit, both indoors and outdoors.
Roocroft mentions that Safaripark Beekse Bergen (Netherlands) was possibly the first zoo to have natural indoor substrates for elephants. Amersfoort (Netherlands) is another early example, with a specific focus on Chester, Dublin and Copenhagen as well. All of those zoos have had great success with breeding and herd dynamics by incorporating massive piles of sand throughout the length and breadth of their habitats. As with so many other progressive zoo-related ideas (aviaries for flamingos, larger terrariums for reptiles, mixed-species co-existing, natural substrate with elephants), European zoos lead the way.
I would highly recommend the book. Alan Roocroft is a legendary elephant expert and he knows what he is talking about. He is brutally honest about the pitfalls of free contact and yet he endorsed that policy for decades. It wasn't until the late 1980s that he switched over to supporting protected contact, which is now the acceptable method of managing elephants in almost every western zoo.
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