They had Hank on the monorail, that's where Astor was born.
Nope, the very same Hank as the one living in Tulsa today, he arrived from Bush garden's in 1989 and lived there until 1993
What a very interesting piece of history. Did they ever hold full grown bulls. They need the strongest fencing if I'm not mistaken, maybe even more than younger adolescent males, which can be very energetic.
My mistake - Groucho was on the monorail, and he was Astor's father. Unsure about Hank, I doubt he was in the *old* old elephant exhibit.
I know that there some elephant facilities with males that have used I beam fancing and generally thinner but sturdy fenceposts. I see Los Angeles Denver and Oregon use thin cylindrical fencing and they have held mature Asian bulls more than all right. I saw st louis has an enclosure with I beam barriers and they should totally withstand Raja, who's 32 now, and other future bulls to arrive. There are tons of African holders with thinner but sturdier posts or I Beams for bulls. Basically I don't think bull elephants need very thick barriers as long as they don't budge or break if they were to pull or ram them.
Groucho left Bronx before Hank so it's reasonable to assume Hank was displayed in the Monorail complex alongside Patti and Maxine following his arrival in 1989.
No it was naturally conceived - Hank resided at the same facility prior to his transfer to Columbus.
Are there facilities that were initially able to hold only cows then had reinforced the barriers later on as a bull arrived? I'm always thought bull proofing an existing elephant habitat would be time consuming but I guess it depends how it was built. I know hogle phased out their african elephants last year bc it would take too long to make the facility durable for bulls when one of the cows was ready to breed
And Elephant sized hip hip hooray!
I know historically there were a lot more Asian deaths from EEHV until the end of the last decade, which is part of why many zoos stopped having African and asian elephants coexisting in the same habitat. There have been African babies dying from it in recent years yes, but more or adolescent ones seem to have dealt with more effectively through good medical treatment and the mortality rate with African calves has still been significantly lower than Asians.