December 22nd, 2011

The entire Savanna Range

What is the size of this exhibit in terms of acreage? It honestly does not look that bad at all to me, and in fact is bigger and better than many other elephant exhibits in North American zoos. However, there is always room for improvement and from the many photos posted I see nothing that challenges the awesome African elephant exhibits at North Carolina, Nashville or Dallas.

The entire exhibit area including all visitor areas is 5 acres. The actual outdoor elephant space is most definitely no where near that. No where gives an exact measurement, but the two outdoor ranges must be somewhere around 1.5 acres. The off exhibit Night range must be around a quarter acre. The indoor exhibit space must be somewhere near 8,000 square feet. Before the exhibit opened, it was advertised everywhere they were quadrupling the indoor and outdoor space. The old outdoor space was 15,000 square feet, so quadrupling that would be 60,000 square feet or 1.5 acres. The indoor exhibit use to be 2,000 square feet. I agree with you when you say it cannot challenge those awesome exhibits. Although I have not seen Nashville or North Carolina, Dallas' elephant exhibits is actually one of the best exhibits I have ever seen. I would say it is definitely one of the top ten exhibits in the nation with the beautiful elephant exhibit, and all the other high profile animals.

@BlackRhino:thanks for the statistics, and it is a bit disappointing that Cleveland Zoo spent $25 million on African Elephant Crossing and the pachyderms have maybe 2 acres of space. The exhibit complex appears to be quite nice but simply not spectacular. Also, what is with the solitary meerkat? Did others die?

@snowleopard Cleveland has a new mob of meerkats currently off exhibit which probably won't be on exhibit til springtime and the lone meerkat now on exhibit is to be sent to another zoo.As far as Elephant Crossing is concerned we have long maintained that while its a huge upgrade for its elephants it is still disappointing that it has not fulfilled its potential.

Team Tapir