ZSL Whipsnade Zoo recently celebrated the first birthday of a baby elephant named Elizabeth by gifting her new footballs to play with.
The largest zoo in the UK saw the young elephant enjoying her special day with her herd and showcasing her football skills.
Elizabeth has always enjoyed playing with footballs, often keeping them away from other elephants and her zookeepers.
Watch the video below:
Her fondness for dribbling an inflatable medicine ball around her 30-acre exhibit from a young age inspired the zookeepers to choose footballs as the perfect gift for the energetic youngster. Elizabeth is the youngest member of the zoo’s herd of nine Asian elephants.
Mark Howes, an elephant keeper at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, expressed his delight at Elizabeth’s love for her birthday presents, emphasizing how the footballs offer fun and stimulation and keep her active.
Elizabeth has impressed everyone with her incredible ball control, despite initially struggling to master using her trunk, which contains over 40,000 muscles.
Elizabeth, named in honor of Queen Elizabeth II as she was born just before the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations in 2016, has experienced significant growth in her first year.
She weighed approximately 130kg at birth but now tips the scales at nearly 480 kilograms. Visitors can see Elizabeth at the Centre for Elephant Care, which the Queen opened in April.
Watch the video below: