Elephants at the Zoo are 'manicured' and cared for to live happier lives

Thảo cầm viên - Ảnh 1. — Mr. Steve (far right) and zoo staff train elephants to voluntarily bend their legs for nail check and care - Photo: BUI NHI

Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden has cooperated with the Vietnam Zoo Association and the non-profit organization Elephant Care Unchained to research and organize health care activities to improve the welfare of elephants in zoo conditions.

Happier Zoos

Mr. Steve Koyle (49 years old, from the US), founder of Elephant Care Unchained, said the goal of the activity is to improve the approach to elephant care. The method being implemented is called “training by goals”, or in other words, training with positive rewards.

The caretaker will use a long stick to guide the elephant's movement. When reaching the end point, whenever the stick is extended, if the elephant touches it, it will get a food reward.

Thảo cầm viên - Ảnh 2. — Elephants are guided to move along a stick - Photo: BUI NHI

He added that the training also aims to change the way elephants are fed. Instead of piling food in one place under the elephants’ feet as usual, the staff will arrange many places for the animals to walk, search, stretch their trunks up to get food and eat in many different ways to resemble their activities in the wild.

In addition, removing the concrete floor is also necessary, because hard floors will damage the elephant's legs and body.

“Elephants, like all animals, deserve the opportunity to live as healthy, comfortable and happy as possible, especially when they cannot choose to live in the wild or in captivity. I hope the elephants here can live less dependent on humans, have an environment where they are free to do what they naturally do, such as digging, bathing in mud…”, Mr. Steve said.

Improving animal welfare in zoos

According to Mr. Mai Khac Trung Truc - Director of Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden Animal Enterprise, the zoo is currently taking care of 4 Asian elephants named Chuong, Tom, Ny and Bo. Among them, "grandfather" elephant Chuong is the oldest at 66 years old.

The special thing about Bell Elephant is that she has a very high spirit of cooperation with the mahout. Thanks to that, the health check for Bell Elephant also goes smoothly, contributing to increasing the animal's lifespan.

However, in contrast to the Bell elephant, Ny elephant has a more erratic temperament because of its "circus origin". During the initial training period, navigating with a stick, Ny elephant had a very strong reaction, because in the past the animal may have had unpleasant memories with this item. But thanks to the patience of Mr. Steve and the zoo staff, Ny elephant gradually understood that the stick did not threaten or harm it. On the contrary, when touching it, the animal was rewarded, so it cooperated more.

“With a positive training method based on mutual understanding, we say no to whips, limit anesthetics and choose to approach the animals patiently so that they cooperate naturally when we need to check their health,” Mr. Truc shared.

Accordingly, this is one of the activities to improve animal welfare at the Zoo. Over the years, the Zoo has regularly repaired its cages, not only improving the landscape but also "enriching" the living area, helping animals live and operate in an environment as close to nature as possible.