All I want for Christmas is… a trunk-load of new shoes

SINGAPORE, 12 December 2007 - With Christmas just around the corner, shoe addicts around the globe are hoping that Santa will bring them that sparkly pair with the sky-scraping heel. But while most are dreaming of the latest designer stilettos, two very special ladies from Singapore have something more functional in mind.

On Wednesday 12 December, the GORE-TEX® brand team and Singapore’s Night Safari will present Asian elephants Tun and Jamilah with their very own pair of custom-made GORE-TEX® footwear. The presentation follows an intensive yearlong effort by the Night Safari and W.L. Gore & Associates, creators of the legendary GORE-TEX® fabric, to create a comfortable yet protective footwear that would hopefully alleviate the two female elephants’ ongoing foot problems.

As the world’s largest land animal, elephants naturally place an enormous amount of stress on their feet. Tun, the younger of the two elephants, has one front leg longer than the others. Her leg was injured some years ago when Chawang, a male elephant at the Night Safari, mounted her and caused her to buckle. As a result, she has a noticeable limp and the extra pressure she places on the other shorter front leg has created lesions on the sole of this foot.

Meanwhile, 30-year-old Jamilah has lesions on the soles of both her front feet because she places extra pressure on her the two feet during her walks.

According to Dr Serena Oh, Assistant Director and head of the veterinary department in Singapore Zoological Gardens (which comprises Singapore Zoo and Night Safari), many things were done in the past to help both elephants. This included hot compresses, acupuncture, joint supplements such as glucosamine and pain killers.

Dr Sonja Luz, a veterinarian at Singapore Zoological Gardens explains treatment has been difficult. “Try asking an elephant to take some weight off for a while,” she jokes.

The vet team began thinking about ways to protect the elephant’s bandages so that the lesions had time to heal. Tun’s unbalanced walk also had to be addressed if she was to have a chance of full recovery.

“The best solution we could think of was some type of protective boot that was durable enough for elephant wear-and-tear and possibly also waterproof. Importantly, it had to be made from a material that allowed the wound to breathe but above all it would have to provide comfort to the elephant,” continued Dr Luz. “GORE-TEX® fabric immediately came to mind,” she says. Dr Luz shared this unconventional thought with the rest of the vet and zoology team who felt the idea was worth looking into.

“The elephant keepers are always open to novel ways of making our animals’ lives better, so we were agreeable to Sonja exploring this idea further,” said Kumar Pillai, Assistant Director, Night Safari (Zoology).

In December 2006, Dr Luz contacted W.L. Gore & Associates in Hong Kong to seek expert advice on whether the breathable, waterproof technology of GORE-TEX® footwear could possibly be adapted as a solution for the elephants. The project immediately captured the hearts and minds of the product development team. Led by GORE-TEX® footwear specialists Raymond Lee and CK Yau, work began soon after.

Surprisingly it wasn’t the first time such an unusual assignment had been accepted. In fact, Gore’s unique corporate culture enables and encourages associates to take advantage of opportunities to think laterally and creatively.

“It is one of the advantages of working at Gore,” says Lee. “With Tun and Jamilah, we had the opportunity to use our expertise and equipment to make a real difference in their quality of life.”

Understandably the project had a number of fundamental challenges. Measuring the size and shape of the elephants’ feet was the first. Dr Luz also had to calculate the difference in length between Tun’s left and right front legs so that elevation could be built into her shoe.

“Initially most of the measurements were taken manually and at one stage we also tried to make a mould by casting Tun’s foot with dental plaster. In the end, it turned out our manual measurements were not only easier to get, they were much more accurate for the GORE-TEX® product development team in Hong Kong to work with.”

While the size was certainly abnormally large, Lee soon discovered that an elephant’s foot behaves very differently from a human’s foot in terms of weight balance and the way they walk.

“A foot of an elephant is very unlike that of a human’s – they weren’t designed with shoes in mind,” says Lee. “They’re shaped like a stump which means the shoe has few places to really grab on to.”

Lee also soon learnt that the size of an elephant’s foot increases by a few centimetres on contact with the ground. “We had to devise a boot that was big enough to accommodate this size increase but small enough so that it would not be too loose at other times.”

Comfort was yet another vitally important consideration. “Elephants are incredibly intelligent. If the shoes are uncomfortable, they will quickly work out how to take the shoes off. Zippers are unfortunately only a temporary challenge,” says Dr Luz.

Over the 12 month period, many prototypes were developed and trialled on the elephants to ensure the best possible fit. Velcro, zippers and even wire laces were all used to fasten the shoe. Metres of GORE-TEX® fabric later, Tun and Jamilah are now set to receive their custom-made boots just in time for Christmas.

“As a vet, my passion is to make the lives of animals better,” says Dr Luz. “Going into this project, I always knew there was a possibility that it would fail but I always felt it was important that we at least gave it a try. That W.L. Gore has supported our efforts so passionately is a fantastic vote of confidence.”

W.L. Gore & Associates Asia Pacific Marketing Leader Samuel Chong is proud of the work his team in Hong Kong has accomplished.

“At W.L. Gore & Associates, we take our reputation for product leadership seriously by continually delivering new products and better solutions to the world. It’s what makes our GORE-TEX® brand a leader in the development of technical garments. Looking towards the future, it is projects like this one at the Night Safari that will continue to define what makes us unique and keep improving the world we all live in.”