Video: Watch as elephants go bobbing for pumpkins at the San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo posted a video on X of four elephants enthusiastically bobbing for pumpkins on Oct. 20. The video has gotten over 56,000 views. One comment said, “This just made our entire October... 🎃.” Another said, “Aww..i didn’t know they love pumpkins so much ♥️♥️♥️.”

In the video, two elephants approach a pumpkin in their zoo habitat. One wraps its trunk around the pumpkin and tries to fit the entire thing in its mouth. The video switches to another shot of one elephant carrying three pumpkins, and then the video shows three elephants each trying, almost successfully, to fit entire pumpkins in their mouths. The final video clip shows an elephant tossing its pumpkin over its head.

Pumpkin smashes are a common occurrence in zoos. In 2022, curator at the Oregon Zoo Steve Lefave told Willamette Week, “We’ll be giving our elephant family some extra-large pumpkins to stomp on and chomp on.”

He continued, “First they destroy them, then they enjoy them.”

The World Wide Fund for Nature reported that elephants eat 150 kilograms of food every day. They eat fruits, roots, shrubs, grass and leaves, and during dry seasons, elephants can eat tree bark and branches.

Elephants spend 16 to 18 hours of their day just eating. These massive animals also drink anywhere from 18 to 26 gallons of water a day, Sea World reported. When elephants can’t find enough food on land, they “dig up earth to obtain salt and minerals.” Their tusks (which are actually their teeth) help them “churn the ground.”

National Geographic reported that since elephants eat so much, they pose a real threat to farmers. One elephant “can destroy an entire season of crops in a single night.”