After largely staying stagnant for a few years, the elephant herd at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium has grown a ton — literally.
With three new calves born in the last year and a fourth due late this summer, the baby boom led one national zoological official to trumpet the Omaha zoo as a model, both for its breeding program and for creating an environment where the threatened animals can thrive.
But a recent report from animal activist group In Defense of Animals called out the Omaha zoo and 11 others for their elephant exhibits. The group, which broadly opposes zoos keeping and breeding elephants, described Omaha’s exhibit space as “meager†and called for the end of its breeding program.
Zoo officials declined to comment specifically on the report, but they did offer a glimpse into daily elephant care and plans for the growing herd’s future.
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“Our management philosophy here is to let elephants be elephants,†said Sarah Armstrong, elephant manager at the Omaha zoo. “Our goal in everything we do is to provide an environment and a life where they can be elephants and they don’t really need us. They’re not looking to us for things throughout the day and we’ve been very successful with that.â€
Omaha’s elephants have access to about 4 acres outside as well as the 25,000-square-foot elephant barn. The animals typically have access to more than one area at all times, especially in summer, Armstrong said.
Space was a chief source of criticism in . Some elephant experts say urban zoos simply don’t have the space that African elephants, which roam extensive distances in the wild to forage for hundreds of pounds of vegetation each day, need for a normal life.
“Elephants need miles to roam, not a few scant acres,†the report states. “The bodies and minds of Earth’s largest land mammals have developed over centuries to walk vast distances, seeking water and foraging from scores of varied plant species.â€
Dan Ashe, president and CEO of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, is familiar with that argument.
His organization, a nonprofit representing hundreds of facilities in the U.S. and abroad, has set standards for elephant care, including space requirements. To keep elephants, a facility needs to be able to accommodate a social grouping of at least three animals. Facilities in areas prone to cold weather also need a substantial indoor space.
“I know people want to make arguments about how far elephants move in nature. That’s a common criticism,†Ashe said. “Animals in nature, they move because they have to move to find food, to find a mate, to find water. They’re not unlike human beings. They don’t move if they don’t have to.â€
Ashe credited the Omaha zoo with creating an environment where elephants can thrive.
“We expect to be held to a high bar, and I think that’s why people go to a place like Henry Doorly,†he said. “They have confidence that they’re seeing elephants that are receiving the highest level of care from people who put great professional pride in that. ... You’re seeing animals that are really thriving.â€
Omaha’s zoo has adequate space for its herd of nine — soon to be 10 — elephants at varying ages and sizes, according to Armstrong.
The future size of the herd hinges largely on social hierarchy, she said. So far, the social dynamics remain positive.
Eventually, Armstrong said, they’ll look for a natural cleavage point among the herd, adding that mothers and daughters or mothers and juvenile males will never be split up.
“We look for the elephant and her calves that choose to spend maybe a little more time off by themselves,†she said. “As herds in the wild grow, they will naturally begin to split down because resources only support so many animals.â€
The Omaha zoo is no stranger to criticism from activists. The arrival of the zoo’s five female elephants — Jayei, Omma, Kiki, Claire and Lolly — and one male in 2016 from Swaziland drew disapproval from some animal rights organizations, including In Defense of Animals.
The 36-hour journey from Swaziland to Omaha included stops in Senegal, Texas and Kansas, depositing some of the herd’s elephants at two other American zoos. Veterinarians accompanied the elephants along the way, and zoo staff met the elephants at Eppley Airfield.
The herd moved into the zoo’s $73 million African Grasslands exhibit.
In 2017, Warren, a bull elephant in the original herd, died during a procedure. He had been the herd’s lone male until the arrival of Louie that summer. Louie moved to the North Carolina Zoo in 2021.
Callee, the herd’s current bull, arrived in 2019 from the Birmingham Zoo in Alabama. He has fathered the herd’s three calves — and another due late this summer.
For decades elephants were brought to U.S. zoos, but transfers of African elephants have become rare in recent years.
African elephants are listed as threatened, said Ashe. In the wild, the animals face threats including habitat fragmentation, human-elephant conflict and poaching for ivory.
The future of elephants — which have relatively few offspring and a 22-month gestation period — in zoos hinges largely on breeding. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which has a program aimed at sustaining the zoo population, said about 160 African elephants currently live in U.S. zoos.
Breeding programs served as another point of criticism in the In Defense of Animals report, which said “breeding elephants in captivity serves only to perpetuate the serious issues that elephants in zoos experience and often ends in miscarriages and death.â€
Omaha’s zoo has avoided outcomes like miscarriage or death in recent pregnancies. Kiki’s pregnancy was a bit of a rollercoaster for zoo staff with hormone levels dropping before a zoo veterinarian heard a heartbeat. But she gave birth to a healthy calf — Eugenia — in January 2022.
Claire, whose pregnancy was textbook, gave birth to calf Sonny weeks later. This month, Lolly gave birth to a male calf. Jayei, the herd’s matriarch, is due in August or September. Jayei has had at least one other calf before — 11-year-old Omma.
Females in the herd are able to choose if they want to stand for Callee when it comes time to breed, Armstrong said.
“That’s why we’re successful and why our herd is growing the way it is,†she said. “They’re set up to be elephants and Callee engages with them so well. They have such positive relationships throughout the herd.â€
The ability to see — and experience — elephants in person rather than on television or on another screen is important, Ashe said.
Still, some larger zoos in recent years, including the Toronto Zoo and San Francisco Zoo, have phased out their elephant programs, sending their aging animals to sanctuaries in the U.S. that have far more space.
Ashe said zoos aren’t doing away with elephant programs because it can’t be done well. It requires “great effort and expense†in addition to the need for a large space, which can limit urban zoos.
“They’re not managing a few elephants. They’re managing a herd of elephants,†Ashe said. “We should be managing elephants as elephants. They’re social animals. They’re herd animals. Henry Doorly is a great example of what a modern accredited zoo can be and the kind of care they can provide for elephants.â€
Keepers at Omaha’s zoo try to replicate the social structure that a herd would exhibit in the wild.
“Elephant life is about family,†Armstrong said. “It’s just going to further strengthen the bonds of our herd and provide better experiences for the elephants.â€
In the wild, elephants forage for food and eat for about 18 hours a day, Armstrong said. Keepers, who work nine-hour days, try to replicate that. The elephant enclosure has programmable hoists and hay drops to offer meals and snacks through the day.
Food is presented at varying heights to mimic the wild. Keepers also bury root vegetables in the sand for elephants to dig up and eat. Truckloads of tree branches are delivered daily for elephants to munch on.
Between the constant snacking and toys like balls, a fire hose cube and big tires, “they don’t really have time to get bored,†Armstrong said.
“We’re providing the environment that allows for them to express all of those natural behaviors, which is just huge. We could honestly be standing on the ground there in front of them and they would still be doing what they’re doing,†Armstrong said. “They’re not looking to me knowing that I’m one of their caregivers for attention or food because they have everything that they need in their environment.â€
This report includes material from the Associated Press.