First Babies of 2020: Addra Gazelles. The calves are both males born February 25th and March 8th respectively. The first is the second calf of mother Swann and the second Calf is the first one of mother Sparrow. Gazelles Born in Plains - Indianapolis Zoo
Some things have changed in the Plains area of the zoo. Their is now an animal ambassador station where you can looked at African Hedgehogs, the warthog and porcupine exhibit has been renovated and expanded, White Storks have returned, and of course Tembo Camp which will allow the elephants to have more room and to be able to travel to different habitats kind of the same thing D.C does. You will be even able to pet them.
Still, I don't like it. It sounds like an attraction for visitors. I think that the elephant itself will attract enough visitors. They should focus mainly on their breeding and not on contact with visitors. I like the Indianapolis zoo, I also like the expansion of the elephant exhibit and they didn't have to put this there.
Apparently, the zoo had some sort of elephant contact years ago and this is their way of bringing it back.
Indy was a great FC facility and did have public interaction with the elephants, I believe only 4-5 years ago
I don't think that these things are mutually exclusive. There are a few zoos that do elephant encounters with guests that usually are limited to handing the elephant a snack and don't involve touching the animals. This creates an amazing connection that the visitors would not get by just seeing the elephant. Plus, it's not like the zoo will force the elephants to do anything they don't want to do. It's just another opportunity to have positive interactions that benefit both the animals and the guests.
Case in point, African Lion Safari in Canada. Does free contact, does public touching of the elephants, also has North Americas most successful zoo based elephant breeding program by far!
Santa Barbara Zoo in California has announced the arrival of "Ralph", an African lion from Indianapolis Zoo. Does anyone know which of Nyack's sons - Enzi or Mashaka - moved to Santa Barbara?
