AZA Elephant TAG/SSP Elephant Information
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Meet AZA's Elephants
Meet Ranchipur
 Ranchipur, named after a fictional city in India, is the 44-year-old Asian elephant bull at the San Diego Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey exhibit. Ranchipur, nicknamed Ranchi, originally arrived at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in 1981. After many years at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, Ranchipur was relocated to his new home at the San Diego Zoo on April 25, 2009.
At one point, Ranchipur weighed over 15,000 pounds, but the training and diet regulations used by the zoo's animal care staff have reduced him to a much healthier weight of around 11,900 pounds. Even with this weight loss, Ranchi is still the heaviest animal in all of San Diego!
Ranchipur’s size is not the only impressive part of him. His tusks are huge, being approximately 6 to 6 ½ feet long and weighing an estimated 100 pounds each! Considering only male Asian elephants grow large tusks, he is very easy to
distinguish from the females of his group. His tusks regularly get so long that the elephant care staff has to trim them. In 2007, the elephant keepers trained Ranchi for months prior to trimming his tusks and were able to trim them without using anesthesia. Thanks to this training, in 2009, Ranchipur's caretakers were again able to trim his tusks without anesthesia. He stood fully alert while calmly eating treats. In fact, since the roots of elephant tusks are near the upper jaw, he felt no pain and didn't seem to mind at all!
Social Interactions
 Ranchipur lives with eight females - seven Asian elephants and one African elephant. While not as social as the girls, he interacts with them daily. Breeding has been observed many times over the years and Ranchipur is the father of Rozana (Rosie), born in 1992 to Alice at the Rio Grande Zoological Park. Ranchipur is also a grandfather to Daizy, just born in September 2009 to Rosie.
Although he gets along well with the females, Ranchi will not hesitate to steal their food. Care must be taken when feeding to ensure Ranchipur does not take more than his share. Ranchi is often Cha Cha’s protector; she is by far the smallest member of the group, and stays close to his side at all times. Cha Cha seems to feel safer with Ranchipur nearby and he in turn responds to her more than any of the other elephants.
A Willing Learner
Ranchipur’s personality is very calm for an adult male elephant and he is a willing learner. The keepers have worked diligently to establish a mutual trust with Ranchipur, and while they respect his size and strength by working him on the other side of a barrier, regular training sessions enhance his health and well-being. He willingly volunteers to participate in medical health care procedures such as blood draws, front foot radiographs, and tusk trims.
Ranchipur demonstrates some amazing elephant adaptations as part of the visitor education program at the zoo. He retrieves objects, demonstrates feats of strength such as log drags, displays flexibility and balance by presenting his feet, and reveals the use of his amazing trunk by blowing into a handkerchief while amusing visitors.
When the keepers at the Wild Animal Park were preparing to relocate Ranchipur to his new exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, they trained Ranchipur to voluntarily enter a large crate. This training ensured that Ranchipur was comfortable and calm during the move to his new home.
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