News about the Zoo’s elephant herd

As you may have heard, the Zoo has decided to move our four elephants to other locations. Dulary, our 42 year-old Asian elephant, has moved to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, and our African elephants, Petal (50), Kallie (24) and Bette (23) will move to The Pittsburgh Zoo's Conservation Center. We expect the three African elephants to move late in 2007.

Why are the Zoo’s elephants moving?

Over the past several years, the Zoo has conducted a fundraising campaign for four new exhibits that will engage and excite visitors and create habitats that provide excellent physical and behavioral environments for the animals. Bank of America Big Cat Falls, which opened in May, exemplifies the experience that the Zoo is committed to achieve for all of our exhibits. As one of the four projects, the Zoo had envisioned a new elephant savanna that would provide a naturalistic habitat for our elephants and a dynamic new learning experience for guests.

Rising construction costs and fundraising challenges led the Zoo’s Board to make the very difficult decision last year to defer plans for a new elephant exhibit. The staff then reviewed potential new homes for the elephants and lower-cost renovations to our existing elephant exhibit. Our guiding principle was to base our evaluations and decisions on the health, safety and well-being of each individual animal.

The Zoo has determined that short-term renovations to the current site would not serve the long-term interests of our elephants or our visitors. In the end, we decided that new homes would best meet our elephants’ needs, and we chose the best possible matches we could find for each animal.

Elephants are amazing animals whose size, appearance, intelligence and role as an "umbrella"* species make them particularly compelling and inspirational. Before our elephants leave, the Zoo will invite guests to join in activities that celebrate elephants and their important role in our world and to learn about the elephant conservation projects that the Zoo supports. Saving elephants in the wild saves thousands of other species, some of which you can see right here at the Zoo.

For more information about Dulary, Bette, Kallie and Petal, please call 215-243-1100 and ask to speak with a member of the Communications staff.

*When you protect elephants, you protect lots of animals that live in the same environment.

Elephant Care at the Philadelphia Zoo

The Philadelphia Zoo?s elephants receive excellent nutrition and health care from a highly experienced veterinary and keeper staff.

Nutrition

• The Zoo has a full-time nutritionist. As with all the animals at the Zoo, the diets for the elephants are not only specially formulated for the species, but for the individual needs and food preferences of each animal.
• The elephants eat as much hay as they want throughout the day and night?approximately 500 pounds combined for all four. Every load of hay that comes into the Zoo is analyzed for its nutritional value and the elephants? pellet diet is modified to complement the hay.
• Every day, the elephants also receive a variety of produce, including beets, potatoes, carrots and apples.
• The elephants all receive a variety of browse (tree leaves, twigs and branches). In the summer, the Zoo grows and harvests bamboo, mulberry, honey locust, poplar, mimosa and honey suckle. We ship in banana leaves and sugar cane in the winter.

Veterinary Care

• The Zoo has three full-time vets and three veterinary technicians.
• The elephants receive an annual general veterinary physical that includes full hematology panels (blood screens to look for infections or other abnormalities) and chemistry panels (checks kidney and liver function, among others) to help assess the elephants? general health.
• At least twice a year, the elephants? fecal samples are checked for parasites.
• Once a year, the vets perform ?trunk washes? to screen for tuberculosis.
• Keepers draw blood weekly for routine reproductive hormone monitoring, as requested by the national elephant Species Survival Plan program.
• The elephants receive annual tetanus vaccinations.
• The elephants are weighed several times a year to make sure they are maintaining the appropriate weight for their age and overall size.

Keeper Care

• During bath time, the keepers carefully examine every part of the elephants? bodies for overall health and wellness. The elephants are trained to open their mouths, so the keepers can look at their teeth, and to lie down, so the keepers can check the tops of their bodies and their heads. The keepers also check the elephants? feet to make sure they're healthy and to make sure their nails don't need a trim.

Enrichment

The keepers place scents, such as perfumes and spices, or food, like peanut butter and dry cereal, around the exhibit and in the rocks for the elephants to find. The elephants also receive items such as puzzle feeders that they have to manipulate to find hay and carrots hidden inside. Keepers rotate enrichment items morning to afternoon and day to day to provide variety.

The Philadelphia Zoo has had an active conservation program since 1992, supporting conservation efforts both here in the U.S. and around the globe. This year alone, we'll devote $248,700 to field projects and organizational membership dues focusing on saving animals in their natural habitats around the world.

Among its other conservation projects, the Zoo is involved in several efforts to protect elephants in Asia and Africa. Just in the past five years, the Zoo has contributed more than $100,000 to elephant conservation projects in Asia and Africa.

Asia
Asian elephant field conservation efforts have focused on Sri Lanka. At Yala East National Park, the Zoo provided $19,400 in 2002 to construct an entrance building and a ranger station to aid anti-poaching efforts. Yala Park encompasses more than 486 square miles and is home to a significant population of wild elephants. Construction of ranger quarters in the park has enhanced the effectiveness of the ranger staff in protecting the Park's wildlife diversity from poaching. In 2003, also in Sri Lanka, the Zoo invested $20,000 to improve facilities at Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage with construction of an additional elephant shed to house some of its orphaned elephant calves.

The Zoo also supports the Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust (BECT), which provides environmental education programs to local Sri Lankan villages with the goal of reducing conflicts between humans and elephants. BECT promotes awareness among children and students of the urgent need to conserve Sri Lanka's elephants. Since 2000, the Zoo has contributed $12,000 to BECT, including $1,000 to the BECT Tsunami Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Trust to assist with rehabilitation and reconstruction after the December 2005 tsunami.

The Zoo also works with a consortium of American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) zoos to provide support to other Sri Lankan elephant conservation organizations. The Zoo�s Senior Curator of Mammals met in Sri Lanka with government officials, NGO�s and private individuals involved in elephant conservation. The Zoo has since produced a document describing worthy conservation projects and has facilitated contributions from other zoos to support many of these efforts, including contributions to support orphaned elephant calves in Uda Walawe National Park (Sri Lanka).

The Zoo's volunteer Docent Council also has donated to efforts in Asia. In 2002, they gave $1500 to monitor a group of eight orphan elephant calves released into Uda Walawe National Park (Sri Lanka) from the Elephant Transit Home. In 2003, they provided $1500 for a human-elephant awareness program in communities around Yala East National Park. In 2004, they gave $1940 for wildlife conservation and village improvement around Uda Walawe National Park in Sri Lanka, and this past year, the Docents provided $1200 to support orphaned elephant care and feeding in Uda Walawe.

Africa
The Philadelphia Zoo has been involved for a number of years in conservation efforts in Liberia that benefit forest elephants in that country. The Zoo created and still supports a Community Relations Officer (CRO) program, with officers serving as liaisons between Liberia's Sapo National Park, local communities and conservationists working in the area. We currently fund three positions held by local villagers from two of the three tribes living adjacent to the Park. In addition to serving as liaisons, they provide environmental education programming for local schools, promote awareness of wildlife laws and gather important information on hunting in the region. This information will help us learn how to protect Liberia's biodiversity, including the forest elephant, while meeting the complex social and economic needs of the Liberian people.

In the past five years, the Zoo has contributed more than $29,500 to the Liberia CRO Project, and approximately $215,700 to other conservation work in Liberia which indirectly benefits the country�s forest elephants.

Outside of Liberia, the Zoo provided $1500 to Loki Osborn, from the Mid Zambezi Project of Harare, Zimbabwe to attend the 8th annual Asian and African Elephant Symposium in Sri Lanka in 2003. By assisting small farms to incorporate chili as an alternative cash crop, Dr. Osborn was successful in reducing human/elephant conflict in Zimbabwe and in creating an adaptable model for other African countries to utilize.

Fun Facts

The elephants get frequent baths, but with varying grades of dirt and a mud wallow in their yard, you’ll always see them dirty! They lie in it, roll in it and toss it on their backs.

At the end of the day, watch the keepers as they run through a few quick training activities like having the elephants lift their feet, an important behavior that lets the staff inspect their feet to make sure they’re healthy.

Elephants typically live into their mid-40’s, although some individuals live much longer (just like humans can live much longer than average). Our oldest African elephant, Petal (with the shortest but thickest tusks), is over 50. Dulary, the Asian elephant, at about 43, is approaching typical life expectancy.

Conservation

Key issues facing both African and Asian elephants throughout their range include poaching, habitat loss and human-elephant conflict. In the past five years alone, the Zoo has contributed more than $100,000 to elephant conservation projects in Asian and Africa.