A DAY IN THE LIFE OF OUR ELEPHANTS

Blackpool Zoo has four female Asian elephants, all aged between 30 and 40 years of age. Crumple and Kate were received from an elephant orphanage in Asia where they were both abandoned as babies. Indra and Marcella belonged to a German circus that closed down. They would both have been put down had we not rescued them and given them a safe home here at Blackpool Zoo.

Today, modern zoos exist on a firm foundation of excellent medical facilities, research, education and conservation programmes with enclosures that provide environmental enrichment and encourage natural behaviour.

How We Take Care of Our Elephants

Daily Health Checks

A daily wash and scrub helps to keep our elephants' thick skin in good condition.

Elephants' teeth and gums need looking after just like ours, so each day, our keepers check for any problems.

The stretch position allows our keepers to check their backs for any cuts or scratches.

Our elephants' feet are checked every day to make sure that the soles and nails are in good condition.

Veterinary care sometimes involves taking blood samples from their ears. To prevent the elephants getting stressed at these times, the keepers handle their ears on a daily basis.

Elephants are much taller than ourselves, so we ask them to lower their heads so that we can check them over.

Environmental Enrichment

A diet of only the best fresh fruit, vegetables, pellets and hay means that our elephants receive the correct balancs of vitamins and minerals needed to stay healthy. Hanging branches also help to strengthen all those trunk muscles.

With a flick of a trunk, our peanut shuttle covers the floor with peanuts, one of the elephants' favourite foods.

We are fortunate at Blackpool Zoo to have a large (almost 5 acre) field where the elephants are free to eat, rest and play. We also have a woodland area where the elephants can browse freely.

As our keepers work closely with our elephants every day, it allows them to carry out treatment if and when required. Elephants are prone to foot problems both in captivity and in the wild. Here, one of our elephants suffers from a foot abscess, which has been treated consistently for 8 weeks. As the pictures show, by the eighth week, the foot and nail was back to normal.

Week 1 Week 2

Week 7 Week 8

If our keepers did not work with our elephants, treatment would not be able to be carried out, and a problem such as this could prove fatal.

Facts and Figures

Latin name : Elephus Maximus

Distribution : Asian : India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand

African : Central Africa

Habitat : Forest, grassland, savannah

Diet : Each of our elephants eat 2 bales of hay each day and plenty of fruit and vegetables

Number of young : One calf

Conservation Status : Threatened by habitat destruction and poaching

Did You Know ???