Annual Squash Squishing Leads To Pulverized Pumpkins – KXL

Portland, Ore. – Two massive elephants demolished two almost equally large pumpkins at the Oregon Zoo on Thursday. Portland third grader Lucy provides an eyewitness account, “I saw an elephant stomping on a pumpkin, and then they ate the pumpkins.” Those elephants were 42-year-old Asian elephant Sung-Surin (known as “Shine”) and 33-year-old Bornean elephant Chendra.

“I think their tusks are short,” says Lucy, “So they can’t do that with their tusks. So they have to do it with their feet.” The gorgeous gourds they stomped were between 400 and 700 pounds. A 1,000 pumpkin was later pulverized by pachyderms Samudra and Samson. 

The traditional Squishing of the Squash, now in its 26th year, is all about enrichment. “These two; the novelty of it is encouraging for these particular elephants,” says the Zoo’s Marcus Jason. “Dietarily, that’s way too much food for them,” he adds, “It’s kind of like our holiday feasts for them.” He says, “It will be eaten, and the rest of it will be discarded into our compost bin to be mixed up with the elephants will give back to us when they’re done eating; if you know what I’m saying.”

At just eight months old, baby Tula-Tu is too small to take part this year, but did play with a regular-sized pumpkin. Again, Lucy provides details, “It looked like it was playing soccer.” Jason says Tula-Tu’s mom then gobbled down the gourd, “You wouldn’t give your eight month old a giant steak to eat; it’s not healthy. And this much pumpkin is not healthy for the baby.”

Pumpkins used in this year’s event were provided by Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers Club member Larry Nelson.