African Elephants in Europe 2021

This is terrible news. It seems that most african elephants conceived by artificial insemination die at a very young age.

This is also a bad situation for Numbi who lost her social partners after transporting Drumbo and her only daughter's death and now she's left alone with Tonga's family.
 
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I agree, an incredibly sad situation with no real positive spin on it whatsoever. Rest in peace, little Kibali :(

One can only hope Tembo has already managed to get Numbi pregnant, so her time "alone" is limited as much as possible.
 
I was at Basel Zoo today, especially to see Tusker, the new elephant bull. And I can tell that he's really impressive, probably one of the biggest elephants in Europe.
But the probabilities to get a female pregnant are really low. And today confirmed my mind. Tusker and Maya seem to be separated. I saw him today with the two other females (Heri & Rosy), while Maya was isolated, and then he was alone when the three females were reunited. Maybe Maya and Tusker don't get along together ?
So it leaves us with one female that could maybe breed (I think that there's no way Heri could breed, she's too old and never had a calf), Rosy, who has never bred in her life. She's 26 years old.
Tusker is the last hope for Basel to get an elphant calf. If it doesn't work with him, it will probably not work with any other bull, because Tusker is one of the most experimented one. I wonder if Basel will keep young bulls after Tusker or if they will stay in a "breeding" situation.
 
Gil said:
I was at Basel Zoo today, especially to see Tusker, the new elephant bull. And I can tell that he's really impressive, probably one of the biggest elephants in Europe.
But the probabilities to get a female pregnant are really low. And today confirmed my mind. Tusker and Maya seem to be separated. I saw him today with the two other females (Heri & Rosy), while Maya was isolated, and then he was alone when the three females were reunited. Maybe Maya and Tusker don't get along together ?
So it leaves us with one female that could maybe breed (I think that there's no way Heri could breed, she's too old and never had a calf), Rosy, who has never bred in her life. She's 26 years old.
Tusker is the last hope for Basel to get an elphant calf. If it doesn't work with him, it will probably not work with any other bull, because Tusker is one of the most experimented one. I wonder if Basel will keep young bulls after Tusker or if they will stay in a "breeding" situation.
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Heri had one dead calf in 2004, but she can't have another The only hope is Maya, but I don't think they will have a calf with this cows anymore.
 
I now know why neither both Five nor Latabe never got pregnant when Jack was still living in West Midlands they wouldnt let him mate with them as this 2010 shows
 
Javier Iniguez said:
I now know why neither both Five nor Latabe never got pregnant when Jack was still living in West Midlands they wouldnt let him mate with them as this 2010 shows
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Five did have a bull calf by AI. Latabe is dead now.
Honestly, I don’t think the bull has to fully penetrate the cow as the way the cow’s anatomy is designed but I could see the cow was squatting.
I wonder what the zoo’s plan is now as Sutton is 7 years old this year.
 
ZCChip said:
Five did have a bull calf by AI. Latabe is dead now.
Honestly, I don’t think the bull has to fully penetrate the cow as the way the cow’s anatomy is designed but I could see the cow was squatting.
I wonder what the zoo’s plan is now as Sutton is 7 years old this year.
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I know that Five had Sutton through AI and I also know Labete died a few weeks ago, the supposed plan for Sutton once he comes of age is that they are planning to welcome new females
 
Javier Iniguez said:
I know that Five had Sutton through AI and I also know Labete died a few weeks ago, the supposed plan for Sutton once he comes of age is that they are planning to welcome new females
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From where? I really don’t think there are any “surplus” females laying around in the population. Almost all of the breeding aged females in Europe live in a matriarchal group and it would not be a good decision to separate any from their herds. Imo, the best decision for West Midlands would be to phase out elephants and send both Five and Sutton to breed somewhere else.
 
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Animals R AMAZING! said:
From where? I really don’t think there are any “surplus” females laying around in the population. Almost all of the breeding aged females in Europe live in a matriarchal group and it would not be a good decision to separate any from their herds. Imo, the best decision for West Midlands would be to phase out elephants and send both Latabe and Sutton to breed somewhere else.
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I think you mean Five and her son Sutton, possible institutions the pair can go to is colchester to breed with Tembo if he still has in him, Howletts to breed with Coco, or Cabarceno to mate with either Junmar or Jums
 
Javier Iniguez said:
I think you mean Five and her son Sutton, possible institutions the pair can go to is colchester to breed with Tembo if he still has in him, Howletts to breed with Coco, or Cabarceno to mate with either Junmar or Jums
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Wouldn’t it be better to transport Tembo? It would be hard to integrate Five in an established older cow herd.

Tembo doesn’t have many living offspring so he’s genetically valuable.
 
ZCChip said:
Wouldn’t it be better to transport Tembo? It would be hard to integrate Five in an established older cow herd.

Tembo doesn’t have many living offspring so he’s genetically valuable.
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It is a possibiity as Colchester is wasting time with their current stock. Unless, the other transfer Tembo to WSMP happens (which would make sense as you would take a proven bull to a proven cow). This has the added bonus of not potentially putting the cycle of the cow elephant in flux (f.i. rhino cows might not breed a few years on transfer (and this is not dissimilar to other pachyderms).
 
In my opinion still, trying to build a new herd around Sutton is stupid. Why try and get a whole new female herd to breed with an unproven, young bull, when you already have a breeding cow? If they were more proactive with AI or bringing in a new breeding bull, they could very easily build up a strong program with Five. A new bull would be easy enough to get, one of the bulls from Cabarceno, Coco from Howletts since they're apperantly getting rid of all their cows, Pembe from Gyor, Kibo from Valencia, etc...Tusker from Basel could likely even make a quick appearance if they really wanted. Since Five is already proven and still "younger", I have no doubt Tusker would have her pregnant in about 5 minutes.
 
The best move in the short run is moving bull Tembo from Colchester to WSMP.

It is unlikely in the current days of Corona blockade on international travel that and elephants would be moving up the Channel. So, just forget that phantasy from suddenly coming into being.

It is to be hoped that the Howletts elephant debacle will eventually see some of their younger elephant stock move to collections within the British Isles (to do something useful for elephant conservation in stead).
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
The best move in the short run is moving bull Tembo from Colchester to WSMP.

It is unlikely in the current days of Corona blockade on international travel that and elephants would be moving up the Channel. So, just forget that phantasy from suddenly coming into being.

It is to be hoped that the Howletts elephant debacle will eventually see some of their younger elephant stock move to collections within the British Isles (to do something useful for elephant conservation in stead).
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Has Tembo actually bred naturally before though? I know he has had a number of calves, however as far as I'm aware most, if not all have been through artificial insemination. That said, transferring him definitely wouldn't hurt either way. He's not doing anything at Colchester has is, would be a good influence for Sutton, and would offer natural breeding chances again to five.
 
Hyak_II said:
Has Tembo actually bred naturally before though? I know he has had a number of calves, however as far as I'm aware most, if not all have been through artificial insemination. That said, transferring him definitely wouldn't hurt either way. He's not doing anything at Colchester has is, would be a good influence for Sutton, and would offer natural breeding chances again to five.
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@Hyak_II Tembo had one natural mating in 2004. This mating was between Tembo and a late Cow named Rosa. Rosa,Tembo along with Opal arrived at Colchester Zoo from Mary Chipperfeilds Circus in 1998. Rosa gave birth to Jambo who is now 17 and residing at Bioparc Valencia. I think Jambo would be the perfect candidate to move to WMSP. Jambo is at the prime of his life and would definitely be able to Sire Calves. Jambo is also only 1 of 2 of Tembo’s surviving prodigy. The other of Tembo’s surviving offspring is Abu who was born via AI and now resides at Halle Zoo. Abu has a few of his own children and is a very settled Bull Elephant.
 
Problem is that Five would need an aggressive experienced breeding bull (aggressive as in persistent).

and as of the howlett herd, the transfer has to be approved by the African government first so I wouldn’t bank on it as they want to get the numbers down instead of adding. Unless they are planning to send them to a private park.
 
It's important to think about the viability of individuals such as Five at West Midlands, or Tembo at Colchester in terms of statistical likelihood. If either were to breed again, they would be outliers. African cows who produce a bull via AI almost never go on to conceive again, and captive African bulls who last sired a calf over seven years ago almost never go on to sire further calves. The dataset is small, and there may be other factors that are solved in time (I'm interested to see what running two bulls alongside each other does for Calimero at Bekse Bergen), but I tend to discount these individuals when thinking about breeding prospects in the EEP.

However, the footage of mating attempts at West Midlands posted earlier is encouraging, I'd only previously seen footage of the cows running away from the bulls. My understanding is that the bulls had to leave because the facility as it was couldn't hold adult bulls, rather than because they were not compatible with the cows. The footage suggests Five may accept natural mating, even from a bull she'd grown up with.

Given West Midland Safari has only just finished a completely new elephant facility, with safari lodges dependent on elephants being visible some of the time in an off-show paddock, it is inconceivable that the park won't increase the number of African elephants held. It remains to be seen whether this is done via the EEP or through recalling one or both of the two bulls 'owned' by them who are currently elsewhere in the EEP. One member has been posting on the UK forum that the intention is to recall; if true, then given Jack and Tooth are two of the few actively breeding bulls in Europe, this may create some leverage...I guess the dream would be that Tooth gets all adult females pregnant at Wuppertal, and then returns with Sweni, given she's unrelated to Sabie and her expanding matriline, but I doubt that would happen. Assuming it's true about a recall, I wonder the extent to which that damages relations with an EEP coordinator, which happens to be Wuppertal.

It's true that Coco at Howletts isn't part of the planned rewilding experiment, but as he 'belongs' to the EEP there no reason to expect he'd remain in the UK, especially if the above comes to pass.
 
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