Elephant enclosure sizes not realistic

3 Africa Elephants = 3781 square meters of land/water. That's less than 1 acre.

It gets worse.

3 Indian Elephants = 1425 square meters of land/water. That's just over 1/3 of one acre. I'm not sure what zoos keep their elephants in such cramped conditions.

Elephant well-being has proven this to be far inadequate and they won't breed well in these conditions and they will develop health problems from physical inactivity.

Imo, Indian and African elephants should have similar enclosure requirements and they should be something like 1 acre/4000 square meters per elephant. That puts them on par with the polar bear in the game, which is about right.

Ideally, the best zoos devote 5-6 acres to elephants. Cologne Zoo has nearly 5 acres (10% of its entire zoo) devoted to elephants. Oakland Zoo houses 4 elephants in 6 acres. Denver keeps its elephants in a 10 acre area that they share with other animals.

Size requirements must change to reflect these realities and protestors should (as in real life) complain if your elephants are housed in inadequate enclosures. For example, Bronx Zoo houses two Asian elephants in just over 1 acre of space and people aren't happy.

Other animals in Planet Zoo reflect Frontier's progressive attitude towards animal space requirements, one of the only major exceptions I can think of is the elephant.
 
Tbh, I feel like all the animal enclosure sizes in the game are incredibly inconsistent
Not really, I checked and the vast majority of animals require AT LEAST the average amount of space they are typically given in US zoos. For elephants, African Savannah Elephant space requirements is average compared to real life zoos but only a few zoos in US house their Asian Elephants in even smaller enclosures. But I am also citing research that shows existing elephant enclosures in US/Europe are far too small and that is why zoos around the world have or are planning to expand their elephant enclosures and many have given them up for good. Frontier has completely ignored this new development but they haven't for polar bears (or wolves) which is why the space requirements for polar bears in PZ far exceed the average found in zoos.

Indian Elephants really are an outlier compared to the rest.
 
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Not really, I checked and the vast majority of animals require AT LEAST the average amount of space they are typically given in US zoos. For elephants, African Savannah Elephant space requirements is average compared to real life zoos but only a few zoos in US house their Asian Elephants in even smaller enclosures. But I am also citing research that shows existing elephant enclosures in US/Europe are far too small and that is why zoos around the world have or are planning to expand their elephant enclosures and many have given them up for good. Frontier has completely ignored this new development but they haven't for polar bears (or wolves) which is why the space requirements for polar bears in PZ far exceed the average found in zoos.

Indian Elephants really are an outlier compared to the rest.
Well, for example, 1 zebra needs as much space as a komodo dragon which is weird
 
Sometimes I feel like the habitat requirements are too small for some of the larger animals, but too large for some of the smaller animals. The first, I can ignore as I generally make those habitats a lot larger than is needed. The second isn't so easy to ignore, and in fact in some cases can't be done without wellfare going way down - unless you're in sandbox and can turn that option off.
 
Sometimes I feel like the habitat requirements are too small for some of the larger animals, but too large for some of the smaller animals. The first, I can ignore as I generally make those habitats a lot larger than is needed. The second isn't so easy to ignore, and in fact in some cases can't be done without wellfare going way down - unless you're in sandbox and can turn that option off.
Yeah the enclosure sizes for small animals are quite annoying.

I think that especially is why the PZ+ mod is so nice to have
 
In that game, polar bears got the largest enclosure size for one. Correct? I wonder what's the idea?
Frontier based the polar bear requirements on wishful thinking. The resource they used was the Bear Conservation Society, which basically suggests a fantasy scenario and might as well be explicitly anti-captivity.

They reduced it twice since the animal was released. Believe it or not it used to be more than twice as large.
 
There are many species with space requirements that are too big (sometimes much too big - e.g., platypus), but very few with requirements that are too small.
 
Frontier based the polar bear requirements on wishful thinking. The resource they used was the Bear Conservation Society, which basically suggests a fantasy scenario and might as well be explicitly anti-captivity.

They reduced it twice since the animal was released. Believe it or not it used to be more than twice as large.
Didn't they base it on Polar Bears walking really long Distances in the Wild, despite the Fact that they only do so to find enough Food, which they obviously don't need to do in Captivity?
If I remember correctly someone mentioned once that a varied Environment is way more important than lots of Space
 
Didn't they base it on Polar Bears walking really long Distances in the Wild, despite the Fact that they only do so to find enough Food, which they obviously don't need to do in Captivity?
No, they based it on the recommendations provided by the Bear Conservation Society as I said, which in turn based their recommendations on natural polar bear behaviour.
 
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