San Diego Zoo, Elephant Odyssey Exhibit

San Diego Zoo’s new 7.5 acre, $45-million elephant playground brings together the zoo’s three elephants with four from its sister Wild Animal Park into a single Elephant Odyssey habitat.

The exhibit, which opened to the public on May 23rd,2009, features a 2.5-acre yard of gentle rolling hills, a 137,000-gallon pool and a care facility where visitors can watch zookeepers and veterinarians feed and care for the massive animals.

As construction manager and advisor, Rudolph and Sletten provided design and construction phase construction management advisory services as required for the planning of animal holding buildings, related support and ancillary facilities, utility relocations, and site improvements for the New San Diego Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey Exhibit.

Five first-of-their-kind artificial trees topped with acacia shrubs which provide food at different times of the day to add a mental challenge to the elephants’ daily routine. These “Utilitrees” will also provide shade for those hot days and heat during the cooler months.

The heavy construction in close proximity to other functional animal care and exhibit areas required a higher sensitivity to the surroundings. Coordination was required not only with the design team but the zoo’s many departments for architecture, horticulture, animal care, and maintenance to make sure that all parties’ needs were addressed during the project. Separate meetings were held each week to ensure the project was meeting the goals and not disrupting the zoo’s daily operations.

Visitors will get the chance for more nose-to-nose contact at the new exhibit designed by Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects. The “trunk wall,” an 8 to 9-foot wall, low enough for elephants to reach over, will allow the elephants to accept treats from zookeepers as they demonstrate the elephant’s ability to use their trunks for virtually all situations. Other interactive aspects of the exhibit include a tar pit replication, fossil dig, and children’s play area just to name a few.

While the elephants are large, they are not the largest animals in the exhibit. Featuring animals of the past, present and future, the habitat also highlights eight life-sized replicas of extinct animal species that dotted the Southern California landscape more than 10,000 years ago.

In an adjacent 4.5-acre area of the new habitat, a series of secondary exhibits showcase lions, jaguars, wild horses and camels in naturalistic environments, while smaller habitats house pond turtles, rattlesnakes, tree sloths and dung beetles.

The new exhibit also marks the return of the California condor to the zoo for the first time since the 1980s, with the endangered bird having spent the last quarter-century at the Wild Animal Park.

The Harry and Grace Steele Elephant Odyssey is nine times larger the elephants’ old home. The expansion illustrates the Zoos’ commitment to these gentle giants. The San Diego Zoo is one of only five nationwide zoos that has completed or plan to build a larger exhibit, while at least 11 others are getting out of the elephant business.

This is the second major project for Rudolph and Sletten at the San Diego Zoo. In 2008, the company completed work at the Zoo’s Wild Animal Park including a replacement of the Park’s monorail.