I have a wildlife zoo

Shooting a music video was just a brief interlude in the tranquil routine of the zoo.

Fang Ye had recently been mulling over the fine details of the elephant house design. Elephants are the largest land mammals with highly developed intelligence. They have specific needs for enclosure size, temperature, humidity, various ground conditions, and the complexity of life their intelligence demands, as well as many other needs yet to be known by humans.

Keeping elephants in zoos is much more cruel than other animals, but the viewing and educational value of elephants is irreplaceable by other species.

Very few zoos are able to properly care for elephants. Generally, the lifespan of zoo elephants seldom reaches that of their wild counterparts.

Even more cruel is the keeping of cetaceans. At least elephants are terrestrial animals and it's slightly easier to provide enrichment for them, with the cost of providing space being relatively lower. Tens of thousands of square meters might be achievable and sufficient though already quite confined, but barely enough to get by.

For cetaceans kept in captivity, there is no such condition; they need at least one hundred thousand cubic meters of interior space to start with. With the high cost of construction and maintenance of aquariums, who can afford that? Their space is so limited that they could finish swimming with a flick of their tails—as if a person were trapped in a bathtub.

Therefore, captive cetaceans live much shorter lives than their wild counterparts, without exception.

In the wild, male orcas have an average lifespan of 30 years, females 50 years, with the oldest males reaching 60 years and females 105 years. In captivity, orcas survive on average only 9-10 years, with a mortality rate 2.5 times higher than that of wild orcas.

Therefore, keeping elephants requires comprehensive conditions. A vast enclosure area is not enough; it requires attention to various aspects such as indoor housing, outdoor activity areas, training walls, training chutes, enrichment... all with complex and meticulous requirements.

Most elephants in zoos display stereotypic behaviors to some extent, with some displaying severe stereotypes, constantly shaking their heads all day long, no different from the living dead. A few hundred square meters of space is just enough to keep an elephant "alive."

If you keep elephants with such low standards, even the basic space is insufficient, let alone the back house which has only a few dozen square meters—facing a wall every day, it would be surprising if they didn't develop stereotypes.

How much space is enough for an elephant to feel comfortable?

In four simple words: the larger, the better.

Keeping elephants is not a simple matter.

Fang Ye decided to keep elephants also because Linhai has a tropical and subtropical climate without a real winter.

Otherwise, during the long cold winter, the elephants would have to stay indoors to keep warm, and the indoor area is much smaller than the outdoor area, making the elephants feel even more confined.

First is the indoor housing. Animal indoor housings are generally made with concrete floors for ease of environmental and hygiene maintenance. However, for elephants, a single hard surface is not conducive to their health.

An adult elephant urinates about 50 liters daily. With concrete floors, drainage becomes crucial; otherwise, stagnant water that doesn't drain quickly means elephants have to stand on damp ground, which is not only uncomfortable but also prone to cause foot infections.

Elephants eat a lot, hence excrete a lot. Some zoos' indoor housings fail to take this into account, resulting in small enclosures littered with trampled, urine-soaked greenish-brown feces. Can elephants be happy in such conditions?

Therefore, Fang Ye used over 50cm thick sand floors for the back house.

Besides offering comfort for the elephants to stand on, sand allows elephants to bury food, dig holes, build mounds, take dust baths with their trunks, and play with sand, all of which make excellent enrichment.

Sandy ground is also of great help for birthing female elephants. On a sandy surface, amniotic fluids from labor quickly seep away, so the ground does not become slippery and the mother can help the newborn calf stand up promptly.

If the calf keeps slipping while trying to stand, the mother would naturally become very nervous and anxious. The consequences of an anxious elephant are severe, such as giving the animal keeper a kick or throwing and trampling a person with its trunk.

Don't be fooled by the elephant's benign appearance and assume they have a good temperament. Elephants are very intelligent, with rich and sensitive emotions. When in a good mood, they are gentle giants, but when angered, they become ferocious war beasts.

Actually, in zoos, elephants kill more animal keepers than any other fierce beast.

With their immense strength, intelligent minds, and nimble handling abilities, elephants, like large simians, are recognized by zoos as the "number one dangerous animal."

In the "Zoo Practical Knowledge Group" that Fang Ye is part of, there's an elephant keeper who almost got trampled to death by an elephant recently.

He celebrated his narrow escape by giving out red envelopes to everyone.

Not sure why, but he isn't feeling great!

He was a bit angry with the keeper, but seeing how well he was usually cared for, he softened and, after a standoff by the wall, the elephant let him go.

Although nothing happened, it was still a very terrifying incident.

In the circus and some other organizations, animal performances, and elephant rides use painful punishment to instill fear in elephants, making them seem obedient. But when this fear builds up and breaks the threshold, elephants can launch fatal attacks.

So as a tourist encountering elephants, for your own personal safety, it's best to keep your distance, avoid feeding them, and definitely not recommend trying any elephant riding activities.

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The benefits of sandy soil are not limited to that; it also allows elephants to sleep more comfortably.

In the past, it was believed that elephants sleep standing up, as lying down for extended periods could compress the heart. Now it's discovered that they actually do lie down to sleep at night.

If there's a mound of soil or sand, the elephant can lie on its side on it, easing the pressure on its head and shoulders, as well as on the knees from the weight of the legs.

Especially for older elephants or those with arthritis, being able to comfortably lie down on a sandy slope to sleep is very beneficial for their physical and mental health.

Of course, changing and cleaning the sand substrate is more troublesome than a cement floor, but for the elephants to live a bit better, a little trouble is nothing.

If it's a temperate region, the natural light cycle cannot guarantee the needs of the elephants, and artificial supplementary lighting must be used in the enclosure to simulate the habitat's lighting patterns.

Although Linhai Zoo is located in the tropical and subtropical region and doesn't need to simulate the natural light cycle, night lighting is still necessary, as elephants are also active at night and over 50% of their foraging takes place then.

Lighting that simulates starlight and moonlight, allowing elephants to socialize and forage at night with gradual changes in brightness, prevents sudden changes that could startle the elephants.

The design of the enclosure's bars is also important!

If the bars are horizontal, like a ladder, elephants may try to climb over the barriers.

The non-operational sides have closely spaced diagonal bars, making it difficult for an elephant's trunk to reach through, which prevents them from harming the keepers.

Additionally, vertical bars with a gap of 40 cm are incorporated to allow animal keepers to quickly escape in an emergency, avoiding an elephant attack.