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The sanctuary caregivers spend their days on varied tasks, from meals to treatments to habitat maintenance. It’s a lovely thought that someone might be able to spend their whole day around elephants, but the reality is that a great deal of their time revolves around doing support work–the non-romantic things that make the elephants’ lives healthier. We’ve mentioned before that the staff takes time throughout the day to pick up the elephants’ dung, and some of you are curious as to why we do that. This week’s EleFact will give you the real scoop behind the poop. 

Elephants eat almost all day. Their bodies digest somewhere in the neighborhood of 45-60% of what they ingest, which means they are constantly in search of energy sources in the form of grass, vines, bushes, and trees. All of this grazing results in a significant amount of droppings throughout the habitat. It might seem that, because it’s organic material, it would be fine to leave it in the yards and allow it to disintegrate on its own. However, the presence or absence of rain makes a huge difference in the length of time it takes for their cannonball-sized poop to break down; during rainy season, it’s a bit faster, but during the dry season, their waste takes an exceedingly long time to disappear. 

This is problematic for a number of reasons, but most notably because it could impact the foot health of the elephants at the sanctuary. Many of the elephants here come to us with significant foot problems, and one of the common causes of their infections is standing in their own waste for an extended amount of time. This was the case with Lady, who lived her entire brave life in need of extensive foot treatment just to survive. After our initial examination of Kenya, it became clear to us that she would be in need of intensive care herself, some of it because of lack of foot care and trimming, and some because she spent time standing in her own urine and feces at the ecoparque. To ensure everyone’s feet are in the best possible shape, it’s best practice to keep the areas where they spend their time as free of waste as we can.

So, what do we do with it? Caregivers drive 4-wheelers with dung wagons attached, through the yards, shifting the elephants into other spaces so they can pick up all of the poop safely. The African habitat has one designated pile and the Asian habitat has two, since there are more elephants there and a larger space to cover. Elephant waste is not a great choice for fertilizing gardens, simply because of their tendency to poop out large amounts of undigested food. That means there are various kinds of seeds from what we feed them, plus a massive amount of Bermuda hay. Everyone we know who has used their poop for fertilizer has ended up with volunteer plants (mangoes, papaya, watermelons, squash, and more) and a massive amount of Bermuda hay in their gardens. So, while it might be nutritious to plants, people tend to try it once and decide that once was enough.

P.S.: Yes, even the mud wallows and ponds get cleaned of poop! Most of the manmade wallows are plumbed to pump in a steady source of water, so it’s not stagnant. We go in and scoop up what’s visible with a pool net that has a sanctuary-made bamboo extension handle, and the rest breaks down or is picked apart by water birds. The ponds get periodically drained and scraped just to keep things from getting too mucky in general.

The cute bottoms of Maia (left) and Guille (right) walking toward Bambi in the distance