After 7-year-old Bodhi the elephant, Denver Zoo has welcomed its second male elephant,
Groucho who arrived from the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas to live in Denver Zoo's new Toyota Elephant Passage exhibit. 41 years old Groucho is a big boy and has become the largest Denver Zoo resident, weighing11, 000 pounds.
Toyota Elephant Passage, which was formerly called ‘Asian Tropics’ was rechristened after a multi-million- dollar gift ($5.4 million to be precise) from the Denver Toyota Dealers Association. This amazing ten-acre exhibit for elephants, rhinos and tapirs, small clawed otters, fishing cats and flying foxes thanks to 7 local Toyota dealerships, will open June 1, 2012 and will definitely be groundbreaking. The exhibit has six interconnected habitats and more than 100 gated passageways managed from a central control center. The facility is capable of housing up to eight bull elephants. No other zoo in North America has the capacity to house that many bull elephants.
Although the construction was completed in 2011 and animals have begun to move to the exhibit, the Toyota Elephant Passage will not open until June 1, 2012 to allow enough time for staff training and animals to become accustomed to their new home.
Denver Zoo's resident female elephants, Mimi and Dolly have already been moved to the exhibit in December, joining Bodhi in the Clayton F. Freiheit Elephant House, whereas Groucho after arriving safely at Denver Zoo and is getting acquainted with his new state of the art indoor quarters.
Groucho's move was endorsed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan. The exhibit supports the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Asian elephant Species Survival Plan with artificial insemination through semen collection.
Toyota Elephant Passage's extensive complex is designed to allow visitors to explore and discover the rich history of wild animals in Asian culture and looks forward to create wakefulness and understanding of the role we all must play in protecting wildlife for future generations……
