Elephant Odyssey Opens at the San Diego Zoo
Mary, a 44-year-old female Asian elephant, took advantage of a sunny San Diego day to take a dip in a 137,000-gallon pool in her new home, The Harry and Grace Steele Elephant Odyssey.
It began with an idea to build the San Diego Zoo’s elephants a new home and became an extraordinary $45-million project that took four years to create. The Harry and Grace Steele Elephant Odyssey spans 12,000 years and is home to more than 35 species of animals, some of which have been around since the Pleistocene epoch.
“To see the same diversity of animals when mammoths and saber-toothed cats roamed Southern California, you would need to travel the world,” said Rick Schwartz, Elephant Odyssey ambassador for the San Diego Zoo. “Elephant Odyssey offers fun, up-close animal encounters with elephants and jaguars, relatives of those now-extinct animals.”
The 7.5-acre Elephant Odyssey is home to more than 35 species of animals. It is the San Diego Zoo’s largest exhibit undertaken at one time. The cornerstone of Elephant Odyssey will be the elephant. Instead of the Columbian mammoth that wandered through San Diego thousands of years ago, Asian elephants will meander a 2.5-acre exhibit that includes a 137,000-gallon pool, gentle rolling hills, hidden drinkers and feeders to entice foraging, and the half-acre Conrad Prebys Elephant Care Center.
For the first time, special viewing at the elephant care center will provide guests with an insider’s view, seeing keepers and veterinarians work alongside elephants using protected contact and a positive animal-management style. The animals will have access to heaters, shelter and shade during inclement weather, while some areas in the care center include a floor with rubber coating for medical care.
The California condor, a bird once on the brink of extinction, will be on exhibit in Elephant Odyssey and will be visible to San Diego Zoo guests for the first time in 60 years. The Zoo first began working with this species in 1982 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked the Zoo to join the California Condor Recovery Program. Since the 1980s all breeding efforts and the display of the California condor have taken place at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. These efforts have led to the successful breeding and release of condors back into California, Arizona and Mexico.
California condors will benefit from a vertical rocky structure for perching and sunning, while a marshy wetland with rocks, reeds and a stream that flows into a pond will offer the jaguar the opportunity to swim or climb a tree for a siesta.
A species of elephant, lion, sloth, tapir and capybara—many of them larger than their present-day living counterparts in Africa and South America—flourished in Southern California during the Pleistocene epoch. Most of those species are extinct. The exhibit is provides a chance to dialogue with Zoo guests about extinction, the problems facing present-day animals, conservation projects and how people can get involved.
Some of the animals that will live in Elephant Odyssey are endangered or threatened with the same fate. The San Diego Zoo works to conserve these species, including the California condor, a species that survived the Pleistocene when the mammoth and saber-toothed cat did not. However, the condor nearly became extinct in our lifetime. Thanks to conservation efforts, including those in San Diego, this bird was brought back from the brink of extinction.
The 100-acre San Diego Zoo is dedicated to the conservation of endangered species and their habitats. The organization focuses on conservation and research work around the globe, educates millions of individuals a year about wildlife and maintains accredited horticultural, animal, library and photo collections. The Zoo also manages the 1,800-acre San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, which includes a 900-acre native species reserve, and the San Diego Zoo’s Beckman Institute for Conservation Research. The important conservation and science work of these entities is supported in part by The Foundation of the Zoological Society of San Diego.
