Perks of the job

The two African elephants at Western Plains Zoo are in training, which is a lot of fun for all the employees. They're being trained to go on walks, but to fully appreciate this, you have to picture the scene: we are out in rural Oz, and the zoo has a ton of property - several acres of which aren't even used for anything. So the elephants go for a short walk through the zoo

and then get to roam around this huge expanse of grassland. They aren't on leads or anything - just under voice control of the keepers.

For now, only employees are allowed to tag along, so the other morning I went on an ele walk. I can't even explain how cool it is - you're hanging out within touching distance of these 2 elephants that are, for all practical purposes, free.

The 4 ele keepers and I spent about an hour letting Cuddles and YumYum do their ele thing - which mostly involved eating.

Two of the keepers have this push-up contest going, so that morning they decided to take it to a whole new level. Literally. One of them got Cuddles to boost him up with her trunk, and he did push-ups on her back. It's such a surreal thing to be watching these huge elephants peacefully grazing in the distance one second, and then be hoisting a full-grown man around the next.

No matter where you fall on the debate of whether wild animals or captive animals are better off, I think these 2 elephants are the luckiest in the world.