ZSL Whipsnade Zoo Why do Whipsade give their Elephants two names?

@Tim May why did London/does Whipsnade feel the need to give their Elephants an official name as well as a name used by the Zookeepers? Surely naming the Elephants twice would confuse them. Elephants are incredibly intelligent so calling some people calling Donna,Donna and others calling her Geetha would make her mind muddled. I’m called George and I know it would confuse me if some people referred to me as George white others called me Jonathan for example!

 

So if a member of the public called out Donna she would not respond, whereas if someone called out Geetha she would come up to them.

Thanks @Chlidonias for explaining the logic behind this concept. @Chlidonias have any other Zoos/Safari Parks adopted this idea?

 

Indeed - in fact, I believe that, at least at London, not just names but all keeper commands were given in Sri Lankan (or maybe Hindi?) so the elephants would never react to anything the public might say. @The Hedgehog if you watch Molly Dineen’s The Ark, you can see Brian Harman speaking to the elephants in this fashion.

I’m not aware of any other zoo that does this, though that’s not to say there haven’t been any.

 

Melbourne Zoo do it with their great apes and their elephants. In addition, many zoos have nicknames for their animals - especially if the name is particularly long.

Auckland Zoo use their elephant’s names but speak to them in German and Sri Lankan, so the public can’t shout commands.

In my experience, nothing gets a chimpanzee’s attention faster than a banana. Sally at Wellington Zoo and Lucy at Hamilton Zoo will both spot this piece of fruit a mile off and hold out their hand expectantly. Of course, I know better than to feed the animals; but their responses suggest other visitors aren’t as well disciplined as I am.

 

I believe Disney AK use swahili with their Elephants, I did a behind the scenes tour last year and I'm sure that's what we were told. Does make sence for large/dangerous animals for an extra safety measure.

 

Some zoos have names that were given to animals at birth/upon sexing/whatnot, and then also have the public vote on public names for the animals to generate publicity. I've been working on IDing the animals in the cheetah studbook and it's such a pain when they have names that don't match their studbook names

 

Public names are pretty much just PR/marketing tools. With record keeping and studbooks, their ID numbers are the only things that matter. As explained above different names are given to animals that are trained and able to respond to verbal commands so the public cannot interfere with them. Keepers sometimes give animals names for convenience. Otherwise many if not most animals in zoos never receive names.

 

I'm aware. Cheetahs are usually given names, though. It's not like places go around making posts using studbook #s.

 

The problem you will have is if house names are different from public names. House names are usually recorded in studbooks and other records, but if the public name is different from the house name it probably won't be recorded. Painful, I know.

 

This is no different from a lot of pedigree dogs’ names. One of ours knows herself, and is known to family and friends, as something very different from her registered name.

 

@Chlidonias When you say the Asian Elephants at Whipsnade Zoo have an official and public name,do you mean that if Donna was moved to a different herd she would be called Geetha and not Donna?

@Chlidonias Could this also be the reason why Budi the young Dublin Zoo Elephant was known as Billy following his move to Antwerp Zoo and then eventually onto Denver Zoo in America?

 

@The Hedgehog I think it would come down to the name that the new Zoo prefers to use. Whether they would prefer eg. either Donna or Geetha. Another factor they would consider would also be whether the current Zoo has any elephants of a similar name. For example, Denver had a bull named Bodhi before Billy arrived. For me, Budi and Bodhi are to alike and would confuse visitors, so Billy would preferred over Bodhi.

 

@Jambo prior to his arrival at Denver Zoo the young Bull in question was known as Budi (Budai) he was conceived at Rotterdam Zoo between Alexander and Yasmin. Yasmin her Sister Dina (Bernadina) and Yasmin's daughter Anak were then transferred to Dublin Zoo. Subsequently Budi was born at Dublin Zoo in 2008. Four years later Budi was moved to Antwerp Zoo to join Ming-Jung,who is ironically now residing at Whipsnade Zoo. Fast forward a few years and Budi moved house again this time to Denver Zoo where he was renamed Billy. This brings you up to the current day in Budi\Billy's life.

 

It is because 'official' names of zoo animals are often complicated, fancy or influenced by sponsors, and keepers are fine to call an animal whatever they wish. So an elephant could have a long name based on Thai language and sounding like a tongue-twister to an Englishman, but people might call it 'Tom' or 'Big'.