The Oregon Zoo Is Enlisting Elephants to Smash Pumpkins

The destruction will begin Thursday, Oct. 13.

Elephants pulverize giant pumpkins at the Oregon Zoo's annual Squishing of the Squash. ©Oregon Zoo/ photo by Shervin Hess (Courtesy of the Oregon Zoo)
By Bennett Campbell Ferguson

You’ve probably seen the elephants at the Oregon Zoo picking up hay with their trunks, ambling slowly about their enclosure, and wondering why the heck strange, two-legged creatures have nothing better to do than stare at them.

But at 10:30 am on Thursday, Oct. 13, the elephants will enjoy a different avocation: crushing pumpkins. Yes, it’s that time of year: The zoo’s elephants will be enlisted to squash some of the region’s largest pumpkins in the 24th annual Squishing of the Squash.

“We’ll be giving our elephant family some extra-large pumpkins to stomp on and chomp on,” stated Steve Lefave, who oversees the zoo’s Asian elephant area, in a press release. “First they destroy them, then they enjoy them.”

The event will set the stage for the zoo’s annual Howloween celebration, which takes place later this month. The tradition of elephant pumpkin smashing goes back to 1999, when Hoffman’s Dairy Garden of Canby dropped off a prize-winning 828-pound pumpkin for the elephant family.

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