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Bali Zoo Celebrates World Elephant Day as a Dedication to the Biggest Land Mammals in Indonesia

Indonesia is known as one of the countries that boasts alluring animals, thanks to its vast wilderness, nature, and its big amount of dedicated zoos and conservations. Among the animals, there is an elephant, which is renowned as the biggest land mammals in the Archipelago.

Bali Zoo celebrates World Elephant Day that annually falls every August 12, as part of its dedication to preserve and protect the elephant. During the celebration of World Elephant Day, Bali Zoo prepared plenty of enriched food for the elephants that reside in the zoo. The food included watermelons, bananas and its leaves, sweet potatoes, corns, dragon fruits, elephant grass, bamboo leaves, banyan leaves, canes, young coconuts, papayas, and apples. All those foods are weight a total of 300 kilogram. “By celebrating World Elephant Day, we like to encourage public to help protect these gentle giants from extinction and to spread the positivity of how amazing it will be if the elephants and others nearly-endangered animals can still live in their nature or the conservatory” said Lesmana Putra, Bali Zoo’s General Manager.

In order to bring more excitement, all these nourishing foods were hung on a 15-meter long rope. The elephants looked very passionate when they grabbed the food with their mouth. Bali Zoo’s visitors were welcomed to join and participate in the celebration. During the day, many visitors stopped by at the venue where the celebration was held to see and learn how the elephants at Bali Zoo are properly treated. They were able to witness the enthusiasm of the elephants who passionately grabbed the food.

Bali Zoo is home to 13 rescued Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus), 11 of them are females and the other two are males. Each elephant is well-fed with 250 kilograms of food per day to assure that their nutrition are fulfilled and they live happily without having to worry of illegal poaching or ivory trade. Their weight range between 2,000 to 4,000 kilograms, with height as tall as 2,5 to 3 meters.

Like the other residents at Bali Zoo, the elephants are not only being well-fed, but also they regularly get a medical check-up by the veterinary team,and the zoo’s team always keep in mind to give them vitamins and anthelmitic.  Periodically, they also get their nails done, as well as their mouth and teeth checked. All these treatments have been done by Bali Zoo to keep the elephant preservation sustainable and to increase public acknowledgement of how to take a proper care of the animals.