Gardening with Elephants

If there is one thing that you can say for gardening at the zoo, it's this - you're guaranteed to never run out of fertilizer.  Zoos produce veritable mountains of compost material, and  not all of it from the back-end of an elephant.  There is also all of the hay and straw that animals use for bedding, the uneaten diets, leaves and pine needles raked from enclosures, and so much more.

When allowed to biodegrade, these materials can form some potent compost, which some zoos use to fertilize their planted areas.  Other zoos bag it up and sell it as novel fertilizer for visitors.  Other zoos truck it off to local farmers, spreading it over their fields.  Any of these options prevents poop and other wastes from going to waste.  They can also generate a decent amount of heat - I was going behind-the-scenes at one zoo on a winter day, and definitely got a little toasty as we walked past the mountainous heaps of steaming compost.

It also provides as great lesson for zoo visitors on composting, a fun, easy conservation activity that they can do at home.  Visitors can learn about different composting methods, from churning it in a mixer to feeding it to a box of worms, and how they can reduce their landfill impact.  They can also learn about what materials are and are not appropriate to compost.  For example, at the zoo we compost our ungulate droppings, but not those of carnivores or primates.  That applies to home life as well - you should bag and dispose of your dog's yard leavings... and flush your own.