FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

15 August 2007

Contact:   

Amber Ricles          

Marketing Manager           

(757) 441-2374 ext 223

ELEPHANTS IN THE MIST

At The Virginia Zoo

NORFOLK , Va. – Like the Virginia Zoo visitors, the Virginia Zoo elephants now have their very own water feature.  The new $70,000 interactive shade structure includes many “bells and whistles” -- elephant toys, feeding and enrichment opportunities and is the biggest shower on the East coast.

Undoubtedly the finest, and largest, elephant cooling system in the country, it measures 25 feet deep, 50 feet long and is 24 foot tall!

The monolithic structure cools the elephants by not only providing shade, but also by producing an enormous cooling cloud of foggy mist that continually drops from 24 feet above the elephants as they walk and play below, cooling the air temperature as much as 20 degrees.  The canvas canopy filters out 97% of the sun's rays. 

Built-in pulley systems, hidden in the structures enormous support legs, allow zookeepers to raise 40 pound bales of hay, “Boomer balls,” other toys and treats well over the heads of the elephants prompting encouraging them to stretch, pull and tug -exercising the 40,000 muscles in their trunks.  This activity mimics the way they would browse for food in trees in the wild.

Zoo staff is planning to incorporate the misting system into the visitor deck near the elephant exhibit so that visitors can experience the same misty fog as the elephants.

To see the elephants and more than 350 other animals, visit the zoo between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. , seven days a week.

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Attention:   Reporters, Videographers and Photographers

We can put you right in the elephant's mist to cover this story

and experience the structure as an elephant!

 Call Amber Ricles to schedule.