Elephants Love Ketchup

Submitted by Erin McEntee

Senior Zookeeper / Elephant Trainer

Detroit Zoo, Royal Oak, MI

Here at the Detroit Zoo we spend lots of time racking our brains trying to come up with new ideas for our 0.2 Asian elephants who are getting up there in age. One is 44 and the other is 50, but they both love new toys and projects that we devise. As with all elephants, designing enrichment for these very strong and sometimes destructive creatures can be very challenging!

Some of the things we have used that don't involve heavy equipment are spices, perfumes, auditory stimuli (which includes a cow bell, classical music, chimes, etc.), and scents from our other animals at the zoo. An example that our girls had a huge reaction to was a pine tree that had been given to the Siberian tigers, and then put out into the elephant yard. Trunks and tails were up and alert, and both were vocalizing enough to stop traffic! They ended up throwing it around and the tree even got charged once or twice, and boy did they get some exercise. Eventually, as with all new enrichment, the excitement wore off and we found ourselves brainstorming again.

In this article, we will discuss a variety of the different enrichment options we have used. The most valuable pieces of our collection are our self-made clotheslines. We hang a huge clothesline between two large trees outside for the warmer months, and then it is taken down and put up in the stalls for winter. We also have a slightly smaller one that we hang in various places as well. These clotheslines are made with chain and then are covered with fire hose. You can cut small slits through the fire hose to hang things or just wrap it around. We also spent approximately $1 ,000 and had large eyebolts drilled into all five of our stalls so we could hang the clotheslines or any other enrichment devices across or diagonally. These two items have been paramount in our enrichment endeavors.

The following things have been the most popular:

Street cleaner brushes: (we have one that is 6ft. tall and about 4ft. around, and two that are about 4ft. tall and lft. around; these are made out of hundreds of nylon bristles and have a hollow center to allow for a chain to be put through; the bristles are very sturdy and not one has ever come off) ..Call to see if old ones can be donated because companies usually just throw them out, and they are pretty expensive to buy.

Tractor tire, street cleaner brush and browse hanging from clothesline

5O-gallon drums, any size Boomer Balls, old chlorine jugs, etc.: (drill holes in can then insert a food item, or link a bunch together, etc.)

"Wanda" playing with plastic barel with treats inside. SO-gallon barrels hooked together hang from clothesline. These barrels also have smaller chlorine jugs inside that have holes drilled in them which are filled with treats.

	Mud wallows: (self-made w/ the backhoe and then we shoot the 11/2" hose into it to refi11) **Serves two purposes, elephants like to play in the hose too!
	Tractor tires or tires of any size
	Shavings (put in barrels or just in a big pile; we also have been giving our elephants an extra large shavings bed in our end stall to sleep on at night and they love it!) *I know what you are all wondering, and no, they have never got impacted or sick from eating the shavings, and yes, they do eat them sometimes!*

The shavings bed (this one is elephant sized), a large PVC tube, and a small tree.

	Cardboard boxes: (small or refrigerator size; fill them up with flakes of hay, their grain, popcorn, coconuts, honey,etc.)** We give the small ones only 1 per elephant per week at the most, and the extra large refrigerator size only one every few months!
	Ice treats: (produce and then fill with water and/or juice and freeze with a chain inside that will allow you to hang; five-gallon buckets work best or 35-gallon cans are fun too. Without a chain works just as good and gives them something to smash!)
	Sand piles (we get sand delivered into the yard)
	Tilling the soil (we have someone come in with a tiller to stir up the old packed down sand in the yard)
	Large cans of water with produce (it is just like the 'bobbing for apples game')
	Enrichment garden (pumpkins, squash, bamboo, cherry tomatoes, etc. is grown in a section of the zoo for the animals)
	Jell-O
	Large cone on a rope (use a very large rubbery traffic cone and 11/2" thick rope; make one end a knot then pull rest of rope through top and then attach with a few slip knots; leave a piece of rope hanging out the bottom of cone and then they can use their trunks to swing it around by the end) **If you leave it long, but not touching the ground, our girls like to swing it around with their front legs and with their tails.
	Hang browse (any edible browse; our girls do not eat the large pines, but they do scratch and play with them, and you can also decorate them like a Christmas tree using produce)
	Whole trees brought into yard (when our landscape dept. cuts down whole trees, we have them dropped into the yard with a crane)
	Hay nets (yes, they get a little shredded, but once our girls figured out how it worked, they really like to use it and it allows for hay to be hung up really high) ** These can be ordered from any farm supply catalog, look in the equine section.

Photo shows traffic cone on a rope and also large laundry bin that has popcorn and other treats inside.

Fire hose cube: (pieces of fire hose woven in and out and bolted into place to form a cube; yo might also want to place a medium size Boomer Ball inside to help keep its shape)

Fire hose cube with medium Boomer Ball inside.

We would like to thank Keoni Pappas from the Honolulu Zoo for this idea, which was in The Shape of Enrichment article vol. II, no.3 August 2002.

P.S. We have found that hanging from 1O-foot ladders and almost killing each other trying to hang that 1OO-pound tractor tire "just a little bit higher" is all in a hard days work for us zookeepers. Because of this fact, tell your bosses you need to purchase a come-a-long to do all of your heavy-duty enrichment projects. It has made our lives much easier and safer!

I hope one or some of these are helpful to everyone. Any questions please feel free to email me at: emcentee@detroitzoo.org. I would also like to thank my fellow elephant trainers -Patti Rowe, Mary Mutty and Rick Wendt -for their assistance in this paper and all of their wonderful ideas.

(Ideas appearing in this column have not necessarily been tested by the editors for safety considerations. Always think ahead and use good judgment when trying new ideas. You are invited to submit materials for the Enrichment Options Column. This might include recipes, toys, puzzle feeders, olfactory enrichment ideas. etc. Drawings and photos of enrichment are encouraged, Send to: AKF/Enrichment, 360l S, w: 29th St" Suite I 33. Topeka. KS 66614-2054. Eds,)