Look at this cracked skin! This is what happens when you use mud as a sunblock as elephants do. Not that they are complaining. The elephants at the Oakland Zoo are happy and healthy. Happy World Elephant Day!
Oakland Zoo is the only zoo in California that still has African elephants. Mainly due to the efforts of the Zoo’s legendary past President, Joel Parrott. It wasn’t an easy road. A tragic incident, the death of a handler in the elephant enclosure, made the zoo rethink its husbandry of this large mammal. As a zoo member, I got to see behind the scenes the new procedures that Oakland Zoo is taking in elephant keeping. First and foremost, there is zero direct physical contact between elephants and humans. Instead, the keepers and elephants are always separated by bars and fences. Second, the use of bullhooks, a barbaric sharp hook used to train elephants using pain, is no longer allowed. Instead, the zoo created an elaborate and ingenious treatment area where the animals can be examined and still stay behind the protection of a fence.
Elephants are extremely intelligent, and now respond not to a sharp hook, but a soft pad at the end of a stick. Well, that and their favorite foods, like bananas. In this way, the keepers can examine, draw blood, and even give their animals pedicures, or a tusk brushing. All of the “treatments” are voluntary, the elephant can choose to participate or not, like ear exams or blood draws. But the foot bath and oil rub is something most of the elephants clamor for everyday. Based on the elephants' vocalizations, they seem to enjoy this arrangement very much.
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Canon EOS 77D, 18-270mm, 219mm, f/10, 1/200, ISO 400
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