Let’s get physical!

Hi y’all and Happy Fall! It’s Caleb with the Elephant Care Team. As the whole Zoo welcomes the fall season and hopefully cooler temperatures, the Elephant Care Team is currently busy preparing our three African elephants, Msholo, Kelly, and Tara, for their annual exams with our Veterinary Team!

Our annual elephant exams are comprised of multiple components, including a physical exam; blood collection and analysis; fecal analysis; TB testing; vaccinations; and an internal reproductive tract assessment. In an elephant physical exam, the Zoo’s Veterinary Team does a full-body assessment of each elephant. They look at each elephant’s trunk, mouth, eyes, head, ears, skin, feet, joints, and other body systems, like their cardiovascular and respiratory systems. In each portion, they’re checking for any changes from previous years’ assessments. Additionally, as part of their annual exams, the elephants participate in trunk washes that involve pouring a saline solution in, up, and out of their trunks into a collection bag. By doing three separate trunk washes over the course of seven days, we can analyze the snotty solution and test for tuberculosis (TB). Then, each of our elephants keep up with their rabies and tetanus vaccinations. Finally, although ours is not an actively breeding herd, an internal reproductive tract assessment provides insight into their overall health and body condition.

As you can assume, annual exams are a huge undertaking for the elephants and the Elephant Care and Veterinary Teams. Zoo Atlanta’s three elephants are trained to participate voluntarily in every aspect of their care, including annual exams. Using positive reinforcement, we can accomplish every aspect of our elephants’ exams while they are awake and actively involved in their training sessions. Whether the elephant is leaning in and presenting an ear for blood draws or a trunk for trunk washes, it’s the relationship the Elephant Care Team has with each elephant that allows us the opportunity to provide exceptional elephant care and contribute to good animal well-being. Every day, we train to build trust with each of our elephants, and it is during annual exams where we truly get to see the display of that relationship, as the elephants participate in examinations better than most humans would. 

At 41 years old, the females are considered geriatric, and Msholo is considered upper middle-aged at 35 years old. Despite their older ages, all three of the elephants are in very good shape, so we fully expect a clean bill of health for everyone!

Caleb U.
Keeper III, Elephants