Keeper for a Day: Elephants

Zoo Atlanta's elephant care team takes on a handful of guests for the morning on Sunday, October 4. The elephant edition of Keeper for a Day runs from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. inside the African Savanna's Zambezi Elephant Center, and it is the closest the zoo lets the public get to the animals' daily management. Participants help prepare diets, take part in habitat service, and watch the protected-contact training sessions that let keepers handle voluntary blood draws and foot care without ever sharing space with the herd. The program leans hard on the reasoning behind the routine — why the barn is configured the way it is, how the training is built on choice, and what a multi-ton animal's welfare actually requires day to day. Space is limited and the session books separately from zoo admission. Zoo Atlanta is at 800 Cherokee Avenue SE.