Enrichment at The Elephant Sanctuary comes in many forms, and Care Staff always enjoy coming up with new and exciting ways to engage our elephants. This year, Staff created some hauntingly fun enrichment for the elephants with special seasonal treats!
Sissy was seen enjoying a giant “spooky mansion” filled with delicious hay and Mazuri. Pumpkins, carrots, and oranges were also sprinkled around her Halloween surprise. While exploring her enrichment and eating the delicacies, the wind blew the top of the box off, mildly startling her for a moment and making it a truly haunted mansion! Even the wind did not keep her from dining on her pumpkin, and with the roof of the house out of the way, she was able to get to the rest of the treats inside.
October 25 through November 30, local residents in Lewis County are invited to donate their pumpkins to the elephants at The Elephant Sanctuary. Because the elephants' habitats are not open for public visitation, staff will deliver the donated pumpkins to the elephants to provide enrichment and supplement their decreased foraging opportunities during the cooler months.
"We love this time of year because we know that the elephants will soon be the recipients of pumpkins donated by our Lewis County community and beyond. The pumpkins provide the elephants a novel treat, and the elephants provide donors an alternative to just taking their pumpkins to the landfill,” said Todd Montgomery, Senior Outreach Manager at The Sanctuary.
Billie, Debbie, Flora, Sukari, and Tange all received pumpkins donated by members of the local community — thank you, neighbors! The African elephants also enjoyed a flake of hay adorned with a skeleton made out of mixed produce. Sukari went for the produce skeleton first; Tange mixed the skeleton with her pumpkin; while Flora ate the pumpkin first and then picked apart the skeleton, piece by piece.