A giant, gray foot pokes through a fence at the Barcelona Zoo in Spain. Is the foot stuck? Nope. Susi the elephant is getting a pedicure! Every day, zookeepers gently scrub her feet—and her best friend Bully’s too. (Bully is pronounced BUH-yi in Spanish.) They also check the pachyderms’ legs and feed them soft food. 

No more crunchy snacks for these elderly elephants. They don’t have chewing teeth left. That’s how zoo workers know their ages.

José María Santamaría says elephants go through six sets of molars during their lifetimes. “Around 40 years old, they lose the last set.”

Susi is 52. Bully is 40. That’s old for elephants! These old gals wouldn’t likely survive in the wild. 

“Sending them back would be an error,” says Pilar Padilla, who helps care for them.

Besides, who would want to leave the spa treatment behind? 

Just like people care for older family members, the zoo takes care of aging animals. 

“Specialized geriatric care is becoming increasingly essential,” says Martín Zordan, head of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums. (Geriatric means having to do with the elderly.)

Many people enjoy visiting zoos just to see the variety of animals. For years, zoos were mostly for showing off animals. Now they focus on helping animals live better, longer lives.

Zookeepers even help animals with loss. Susi and Bully lost their friend Yoyo, who died at age 54. The two were sad. They stopped eating. But now they feel better. They stay close together and even share food. Elephants are intelligent. They form close community ties. Susi and Bully seem like siblings.

God made every animal. He wants us to care for each with compassion. Thank God for kind zookeepers.

 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves. . . . And God saw that it was good. — Genesis 1:21