Asian Elephant Enclosure

A tour around the Asian Elephant enclosure, opened in 2012. It is for the first time in the History of Planckendael they has elephants. The current 5 elephants came from the Antwerp Zoo, the other member of the RZSA (Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp). The exhibit is the biggest and most expensive in the history of Planckendael and their real flagship project.

Here you see a part of the Asian Elephant enclosure.

Thanks for uploading so many photos of the new elephant exhibit at Planckendael, as I think that there are almost 60 shots just of the this section of the zoo. That is something that I would do! How large is the enclosure? Is this the first step in a long-range plan to remove some of the larger species from the urban Antwerp Zoo and transport them to the sister facility out in the country?

The exhibit for the females + calfs = 10.000m² (1ha)
The exhibit for the bull = 2.000m²
When possible, the two exhibits will be open for all elephants.
The indoor exhibit for the females + calfs = 750m²

Less and more... The idea is that Plancendael will hold the breeding groups of big animals and Antwerp will upgrade his current exhibits for those animals and hold not usable individuals of the species.

Already in 2008 the breeding group of Kordofan Giraffes of Antwerp has moved to a new and large exhibit in Planckendael. Antwerp enlarged the old exhibit to the Belgian laws and holds now hybrides or females who are not usable for the EEP/ESB. They have now for example 3 Rothschild giraffes, 1 Reticulated Giraffe and 1 Masai Giraffe.
In the future, the giraffes will get a new exhibit in Antwerp.

And so for the Asian Elephants: Planckendael holds now the 5 females of diffrent ages of Antwerp and will get soon a bull to breed.
At this very moment, Antwerp is updating his elephantexhibit to hold young Asian Elephant bulls. They get this year 3, 1 of them will move in 2013 to Denver Zoo.
Antwerp also planned to build a new exhibit in the future (maybe on their last expansion area).

They made choises. Antwerp doens't hild anymore White Rhinoceros, the big cat collection will reduced, only African Lions, Siberian Tigers and Amur Leopard will be hold. The lions has already a big new exhibit (see the Antwerp thread), the others will get new in 2016. The jaguars will move to another zoo.
Also for the big apes, only one or two species will be hold. The Urang Utans are already gone.

Sometimes there are rumors that the Gorillas will go to Planckendael, but that's never confirmed.

Wow, thanks for all of the information. I've been hearing rumors for years now of many larger species moving to Planckendael and you've confirmed that Antwerp has been downsizing its collection. Like most urban zoos the modern space requirements for exotic animals makes it difficult to maintain a diverse listing of species and it makes sense to send groups of large animals to a sister zoo that is almost four times larger in terms of acreage. I wonder if Antwerp's 1.3 million annual visitors will hold steady while Planckendael's 850,000 visitors will slowly increase with the addition of marquee animals.

Your welcome!

Antwerp has annual +/- 1 million visitors. That 1.3 milion visitors was exceptional, because that was in 2009, when the first elephant was born in Belgium and there was a huge campaign around it.
But 1.3 milion is way too much for th Antwerp Zoo, they can't handle it I saw that year.
Planckendael is annual around 800.000.

But I think Plankendael (and Pairi Daiza) will be the biggest zoo of Belgium in the next years if it goes about visitor numbers.

That is very interesting info. And I'm glad to see zoos around the world providing much larger habitat spaces for their pachyderms.