How to Adapt an Elephants' Environment

Elephants do not make good pets. If you're thinking of getting an elephant for a pet, remove that thought from your head! However, if you work or volunteer at an animal shelter, you may get abandoned elephants that were once pets when small. You want to make their enclosure as stress-free as possible before they can find a good home at a huge zoo, park or preserve.

Things You'll Need

  • Fenced in pasture with shelter, trees and water
  • Hay
  • Fruit
  • Other elephant food
  • Assorted large objects like barrels, beach balls, pumpkins, dead trees
  • Painting materials with non-toxic paint (optional)
  • Imagination
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Instructions

  1. Home Sweet Elephant Home

    • 1

      Take inventory of what you already have and modify that to keep the elephant from getting really bored.

    • 2

      Don't place all of their food in one location. Hide the food -- even hay -- in many different locations throughout the enclosure to make them look for it. Put it up in tree branches, in boxes with the lid open, in the holes of dead trees, in rock crevasses, in closed barrels with some holes in them or anywhere you can think of.

    • 3

      Make sure there is a large water area where the elephant can get a good splash, as elephants love to play in and with water.

    • 4

      Provide toys like incredibly large pumpkins, watermelons, huge branches, balls or try non-toxic paint and canvas to see if they would like to paint (it has happened -- see the link to The Elephant Art Gallery below). Be sure to supervise the introduction of any new toy, back scratcher or water device in order to make sure that no one is hurt.

    • 5

      Keep trying new things