Elephants of the Asian Forest

 To support our Asian Elephant conservation work the new ‘Elephants of the Asian Forest’ house opened at Easter 2006.

The new £3 million exhibit covers more than 2,900m2 and is home to tree shrews, hornbills, squirrels, peafowl, Arowana and Probarbus fish, and our herd of Asian Elephants. It immerses visitors into an Asian forest and focuses on a celebration of the forest community, seeking to explain ecological niches and relationships and the work of the Assam Haathi Project.
 

The plants inside are all of South East Asian origin and were chosen to represent the tropical rainforest vegetation. A number of them are of economic importance and educational interest, and include Paw-Paw, Mango, Starfruit, Bread Fruit, Teak, and Ginger.

For our elephant herd the exhibit provides completely soft-flooring throughout and a large ‘behind the scenes’ facility for training and management of our elephants.

Our herd grew by two in 2007 with the arrival in January of a new female, ‘Birma’, from France and the birth of a new male calf, ‘Raman’, in November.