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Keepers try to make days interesting for elephants

Keepers have to be sure elephants, like all animals at the Oklahoma City Zoo, have plenty of entertaining items to keep them mentally stimulated. Enrichment is an important part in the lives of captive animals.

BY CARRIE COPPERNOLL | Modified: November 23, 2010 at 10:34 am | Published: November 19, 2010 Comment on this article

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Zoo staff members create a lot of the toys elephants use, Forman said. For example, the elephants like scratching their backs against a brush off a street-cleaning truck. Keepers hide food inside a basket made of woven fire hoses. A rope net can hold hay and dangle from the ceiling.

â€œIt gives their trunks a good workout,â€ Forman said.