Construction of a new, 5,000 sq ft elephant barn should begin soon at Audubon Zoo-New Orleans, Louisiana. A new, much larger exhibit for Panya and Jean should follow shortly after. The cool thing about the project is that while the interior will be state of the art, the facade will replicate the old, historic elephant barn which is a local landmark.
The old elephant barn was built by the WPA in 1938-39. In 1979, the exhibit was given a minor overhaul with slightly more room, a pool for bathing and better viewing for the visitors. A new elephant exhibit has been in the planning stage for several years but hurricane Katrina caused massive delays. The 2 hoofstock yards across from the lions and tigers have been near empty for a while now and the camel exhibit was recently closed. These three exhibit areas as well as a bit more space beyond are going to encompass the new exhibit.
The zoo posted a "coming soon" sign near the site of the new exhibit and it showed the detailed layout of the barn but nothing yet about the new exhibit. Hopefully, construction will begin in spring/summer 2011. The last that I had heard is that the present exhibit will still be used for the elephant show but plans are always changing.
I posted some pictures in the Audubon Zoo gallery. Two of the pictures show the plans for the new elephant barn.
