Williston, Fla. – You don’t have to leave the country to have a close encounter with Elephants.
Two Tails Ranch in Williston, which is just south of Gainesville, is home to four Asian elephants.
Patricia Zerbini runs the ranch. She uses it to teach people about the animals and allows visitors to feed them, take pictures with them and ride them too.
You need to visit the website to set up the 1 1/2 to 2-hour experience.
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But a quick stop on their ticketing page reveals your investment will be much cheaper than some of the other attractions in Central Florida.
Adults are $20 each, children 3-9 years old are $10 each, and kids under two years old are free. Feeding the elephant will cost $5 more, photo ops are $25, and rides cost $40 per person.
If you go to the facility you’ll quickly notice Zerbini’s love for elephants.
She is part of a family that has been raising exotic animals for nine generations — some focused on big cats, but she said elephants just spoke to her.
“In my family, we all work with a multitude of species and at some point, your characteristics click with a species better than others. That’s usually the species you are going to go with because everything you do with them comes naturally,” Zerbini said.
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She said she feels a connection with them and wants other people to as well.
That’s why she started her business and started educating the public about what she calls these majestic animals.
On Florida’s Fourth Estate, she told hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden that Williston is the ideal place for Asian elephants because it is “hot, humid and sticky” adding it is “the perfect Asiatic weather for them.”
If you happen to feed them you may notice they have a unique way of taking food from your hand. They have a finger-like muscle at the top of their trunk that grasps the food as they bring it to their mouth.
“That thing gripped my finger,” Gadsden said.
“There’s 150,000 muscle units in their trunk alone,” Zerbini said. “Their trunk is basically their nose and their top lip all into one. All food and water has to come up to the mouth because the mouth cannot come down to the floor.”
What you are offering the elephants is just a small part of their daily diet.
“The average elephant here at the ranch consumes anywhere between 250 to 400 pounds of food a day,” Zerbini said.
To learn more about elephants, their diet, what they do and don’t like, the unique noises they make and what you can expect during a visit to Two Tails Ranch, including the woman who is dedicating her life to running the facility check out Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can download the podcast from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch it anytime on News 6+.
You can listen to every episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate in the media player below: