Wilstem Wildlife Park Wilstem Wildlife Park (big roadside zoo in Indiana)

ZooElephantMan

ZooElephantMan

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Wilstem Wildlife Park is a roadside zoo in Paoli, Indiana. The park has a variety of ABC animals, including giraffes, grizzly bears, and both African and Asian elephants. Interestingly, their elephants were not listed on elephant.se, nor were they listed on any of the North American elephant population threads (as far as I can tell).

As a roadside zoo, WWP is not beholden to the AZA's protected contact elephant management rules. As such, the park is free to uniquely provide guests with many dangerous opportunities to directly interact with their animals, such as...
  • Helping bathe the elephants
  • Private photo session with an elephant
  • Safari ride into the elephant habitat in an open air vehicle
  • Painting the elephants’ toenails
At least they aren't forced to give rides.

Wilstem-Ranch-VFLWB_072017_A_0394_1200x800-1024x683.jpg


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On another note, the zoo is known for several controversies, including intentionally “euthanizing” a llama by crushing it with heavy machinery.

Has anyone heard of this place before / been here before? I would assume not, as I couldn’t find any discussion about the park anywhere else on this site. Just from my online research, the place clearly seems to have a lot of major problems- both in the way they treat their animals and the dangerous interactive opportunities they allow their guests to participate in. If anyone has visited, I would definitely be curious to hear what the experience was like.

The park's website can be accessed here: https://www.wilstem.com/

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Sources for the above images:
 
Sounds like an interesting place, and I mean that in both positive and negative ways. I might check this place out if I ever find myself in the area.

May I ask what you have against elephant rides?
 
birdsandbats said:
May I ask what you have against elephant rides?
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Before I answer this question, I want to acknowledge that I know this is a very contentious topic here on Zoochat. I understand that elephant rides have a lot of cultural significance and historical precedence. I also understand that riding an elephant can be an incredible awe-inspiring once in a lifetime experience. Because zoos partly exist to entertain and inspire visitors, and because elephant rides are an entertaining and inspiring experience, I can see why many Zoochatters support them. I just personally feel that there are some problems with elephant rides which outweigh these benefits:
  1. I think the way you incentivize an animal to perform a behavior matters. Elephant rides typically require the use of a bull hook, which may be painful for the animal involved. In my opinion, this is less ethical than other forms of training which use positive reinforcement and a food reward. Depending on the specific instance, the process of training an elephant to give a ride can also be psychologically distressing for the animals (see this footage of “crushing” an elephant in Asia: Undercover footage shows cruel training used on baby elephants to boost Thailand tourism)
  2. Unlike many trained animal behaviors (such as training an animal to present a body part to be inspected), elephant rides exist mostly for human entertainment, and provide little medical value or positive impact on the individual animal involved. Some see ride-giving as a way to make elephants exercise, but alternative forms of elephant exercise exist. For example, according to this article (A step ahead: at zoo, elephants are walking more than ever) a program at the Oregon zoo has incentivized their elephants to walk around 10 miles every day. This is a great form of exercise for the animals, and is also less stressful and less invasive than ride-giving.
  3. Rides, just like any free contact situation with an elephant, have a higher chance of putting people at risk.
  4. Forcing an elephant to give rides necessitates temporarily isolating it from its natural herd / social dynamics, solely for the pleasure of paying customers. Many people value the simulation of nature in zoos, but by taking elephants out of their naturalistic habitats and social groups in order to give rides, we are breaking the natural immersion that zoos strive to create. Elephants do not give rides in the wild. When we force them to give rides in zoos, we simulate elephant life in an urban environment, instead of simulating elephant life in the wild places that zoos are trying to represent and conserve.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
I can see why many Zoochatters support them
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I don't want to get into a debate, but I'm surprised to find that this isn't universally disliked on a site like ZooChat, when it's definitely not good at all for the elephants, as far as I am aware. It's less even whether it harms the elephants and more that the places that offer elephant rides tend to be places that have other ethical concerns. Again, this is just my experience and impression.
 
ifesbob said:
I don't want to get into a debate, but I'm surprised to find that this isn't universally disliked on a site like ZooChat, when it's definitely not good at all for the elephants, as far as I am aware. It's less even whether it harms the elephants and more that the places that offer elephant rides tend to be places that have other ethical concerns. Again, this is just my experience and impression.
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Are there other US facilities still offering elephant rides?
 
JVM said:
Are there other US facilities still offering elephant rides?
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Not that I'm aware of, but I visited an elephant sanctuary in Thailand and that gave me the impression that elephant rides were Not Good for the elephants and if not overtly extremely harmful, common with other bad practices in unethical elephant places that, for example, keep elephants on chains. It is possible to safely have close contact with elephants, but basically rides themselves at least don't sit well with me.
 
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JVM said:
Are there other US facilities still offering elephant rides?
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Circus World Museum still does, I believe.
ifesbob said:
I don't want to get into a debate, but I'm surprised to find that this isn't universally disliked on a site like ZooChat, when it's definitely not good at all for the elephants, as far as I am aware. It's less even whether it harms the elephants and more that the places that offer elephant rides tend to be places that have other ethical concerns. Again, this is just my experience and impression.
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So you don't like something just because some bad places do it? That seems like not very sound logic.

Elephant rides can be done right, and have for millennia. Asian Elephants are essentially domestic animals in many parts of Asia. Many elephants like to give rides and do not even have to be incentivized to do so. For those that do, there are plenty of ways besides bullhooks.
 
birdsandbats said:
So you don't like something just because some bad places do it? That seems like not very sound logic.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can see why that doesn't seem like sound logic. My thought process is basically that places that I would consider overall "better" for elephants don't have them, and places that are "bad" for the elephants are more likely the ones that have them. I don't think that makes my logic sound any better, and like I said my only problem is that it personally makes me feel icky (and there are lots of things that make me feel icky that I realize are perfectly fine).

While I'm sure there are places that do it well, if we're talking about logic that isn't sound, something being done "for millennia" doesn't mean it's good. Also, while I know what you mean by "essentially domestic", my understanding is that elephants are not domesticated and are simply tame because they aren't a good candidate for domestication.

I am still interested in avoiding entering a debate though, I have a tendency to get overly heated even in casual discussions so I think it's better for everyone if I don't pursue this farther. I'll clarify my thought process if needed but my understanding of elephant rides is admittedly lacking so not much would be accomplished in that sense either.
 
Two tails ranch still offers elephant rides. As does Natural Bridge Zoo. I thought that Elephant Ranch Myakka did as well but nothing on their website (which is funny cause Wilstem uses their elephants in the summer). There's random circus dates as well, Carden and CB still has ride elephants
 
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