The Asian Elephants Exhibit will be our fourth stop. This includes the Six elephants housed here, the Lilah Callen Holden Elephant Museum, and looking at the elephant's habitat. First we will learn about the six elephants themselves. Elephants are very large creatures ranging from 6,000 to 14,000 pounds and 7 to 12 feet. We can see that they are gray with a long trunk and very large feet to hold all of their weight. Tusks are something that only some males produce. They have pretty sharp teeth which are like many plates build up next to each other, and they have 4 molars. Elephants usually live about 45 years and they eat mostly hay and grain at the zoo. In an elephants native land they would live in both the jungle and a grassy field. The picture above on the left is of an elephant at the Portland Zoo playing with a log.
Now that we know a little about the elephants at the zoo, we can head into the Lilah Callen Holden Elephant Exhibit, which is shown above on the right. This museum came about in 1985 and features ivory objects, models of ceremonial elephants, and information on the elephants kept at the zoo. Hinduism and Buddhism both consider the elephant to be a sacred creature so there are stories in this museum that tell about how the elephant became so sacred. Also, The museum is in the shape of a circle and the in the middle is a huge elephant skeleton.
Now let's see the habitat at the Portland Zoo that the elephants live in! These six elephants are taken care of in a 50,670 square foot area. Here there is a front and back yard, both filled with trees, logs, sand pits, water holes, and grass land. There is also an indoor barn for them as well which has 6 different rooms. A large amount of area is definitely needed to house such large animals.
