Even at 10 acres and $52 million, the Asian Tropics exhibit at the Denver Zoo won’t satisfy all the critics.
It won’t be Namibia, Tanzania or Sumatra, after all. The elephants won’t be free to travel miles in herds that communicate through distinctive rumbles across the landscape. They won’t be able to teach their young how to distinguish friendly herds from enemies or how to find medicinal plants to cure their illnesses or how to protect their babies from hungry lions.
It won’t be perfect.
Dale Leeds is tired of trying to persuade those who will settle for nothing less than a pristine wild habitat that is increasingly endangered.
“I will never say Asian Tropics will be perfect, but I also will never say that because it can’t be perfect we shouldn’t do anything and just let the elephant go extinct,” said the zoo’s curator of large mammals, a guy with an African elephant tattooed on his leg.
“Elephants are a lifelong commitment for me,” he said.
That means Leeds spends vacations helping Sri Lankan villagers build solar-powered electric fences around their rice fields, and teaching people in Botswana to plant fiery chiles around their vegetable plots so hungry elephants won’t be shot on sight when they feast on the local food supply.
It means while most of us think of the zoo as a fine place for a picnic on a summer afternoon, Leeds looks at it as a critical conservation resource.
The way he sees it, every child who looks an elephant in the eye is one more person who just might make protecting what little is left of wild animal habitat a priority. “The situation for elephants is so grave at this point, it will take a global elephant community to save them,” Leeds said, and that includes animal advocates whose concern was cultivated in zoos.
Research into the culture and psychology of elephants – though still in its infancy – has advanced significantly. The 2005 report by the Coalition for Captive Elephant Well-Being describes elephants as “complex individuals,” “sentient creatures capable of suffering both physically and mentally.”
It says they employ elaborate systems of communication, transmit knowledge to each other, use tools, and really do have extraordinary memories.
Based on information in this compilation of studies, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums last year issued tough new standards for keeping elephants in captivity, standards that have led several zoos around the world to abandon elephant exhibits entirely.
The Denver Zoo instead chose to expand its commitment. The plan is to enlarge the elephant population from two females to six to eight animals, including a couple of males. In time Leeds would like to see the animals breed successfully, something that is increasingly difficult in both captive and wild populations.
By making captive elephant populations self-sustaining, Leeds said, the future of all wild animals is enhanced.
“Elephants inspire people to care,” he said.
To demonstrate that, he took me to meet “the girls.”
Keeper Barb Junkermeier led us onto the apron surrounding their yard and called to Mimi and Dolly, two middle-aged Asian females, who welcomed me warmly, not because of my obvious charm but because I had a bucket of apples.
They offered their trunks for me to pet and then nimbly plucked the apples from my hand. “Did you hear that?” said Junkermeier. Mimi had rumbled her thanks after she popped the apple into her gaping maw.
I missed it. I listened again as I handed her another apple.
Junkermeier heard her, but I still didn’t. Elephant language often is in a range that is inaudible to human ears.
“There,” she said, “did you see the way she held her head? The look on her face?”
Mimi finally got through. The message? She wouldn’t mind seeing me again as long as I brought a bucket of apples.
Like many zoo critics, I wish Mimi and Dolly could be caring for offspring in a humid South Asian jungle. I wish the trees there weren’t being logged for fuel and the elephant populations weren’t threatened by encroaching human development.
Like the critics, I’m not sure humans can be trusted to know what’s best for an elephant.
I just know that we can do better. And so we must.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
