SEATTLE - Visitors to Woodland Park Zoo may notice a continuous hum of construction activity at the award-winning Elephant Forest: the addition of gates in the outdoor yard, a protective wall and modified posts in the barn, the relocation of drinkers and more. The interior and exterior changes are in preparation for the zoo’s shift to a form of elephant management called protected contact. As a high priority construction project, the zoo anticipates completing the exhibit changes by the end of this year.

Woodland Park Zoo, famed for its award-winning naturalistic wildlife exhibits and for conservation education, currently operates under the “free contact” system of elephant management. While free contact places keepers in immediate contact with powerful animals many times their size, the newer form of protected contact always separates keepers and elephants by a protective barrier such as a wall, gate or metal screen. With half of North America’s zoos still practicing free contact, there is a growing trend among zoos to move toward this alternative system of managing elephants.

Exhibit modifications to accommodate the new management system resumed late last year after a hiatus. “We put the plan into motion four years ago with the installation of a restraint chute device in the barn,” explains zoo Deputy Director Bruce Bohmke. “However, the birth of baby elephant Hansa in 2000 changed the dynamics of the herd and consequently disrupted further progress,” adds Bohmke. After alterations to the elephant exhibit are completed, the zoo will have invested about $600,000 in the new management system.

Improved facility design and responsive training techniques under protected contact assure keeper safety while maintaining the health and well being of the zoo’s elephants. For example, “The working wall enables our animal management staff to carry out routine care and veterinary procedures while ensuring their own safety and providing the highest quality care for the animals,” notes Bohmke. And, the addition of hydraulic gates in the outside yards “allows the keepers to operate gates remotely while shifting the animals,” adds Bohmke.

To the average zoo visitor, the additional benefits of protected contact will be less apparent. Since competition for space between keepers and elephants is eliminated, the need for keepers to exert their dominance in the herd with physical discipline, in order to work safely, is also eliminated. Working safely from behind the specially designed barriers gives keepers the opportunity to use alternative (non-physical) methods to discourage undesired behavior. The variety of new techniques and positive motivation provides the elephants with more freedom of behavior and activity.

Woodland Park Zoo has been exhibiting elephants for more than 80 years. In addition to 1_-year-old Hansa, the herd, all females, consists of: 35-year-old Asian, Bamboo; the zoo’s only African elephant, 33-year-old Watoto (wah-TOE-toe); and 23-year-old Asian, Chai, the mother of Hansa.