North American African Elephant Population

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Mai Thai said:
I think the elephant care team at ZooTampa at the time I asked did not want to share any public information about the elephant breeding program and so that is why they said ZooTampa is not currently breeding elephants while they were.
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That’s pretty common re. pregnancies of high profile species. I was told by a zoo that they were waiting for a breeding recommendation for one of their apes. In reality, she had a breeding recommendation and they’d known for three months she was pregnant when I asked the question.
 
Mai Thai said:
Another note is two weeks ago I visited the Indianapolis Zoo to ask the elephants care staff about their breeding program. They said that they have been actively working to breed Kedar with Zahara over the past couple years but they could not confirm or deny if she is pregnant.
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That's great news to see they're at least attempting. The fact that Zahara is still not pregnant yet (or at least as far as we know) though does worry me, especially considering her age. Fingers crossed Kedar can or has gotten the job done- a baby at Indianapolis would be absolutely phenomenal.
 
So a family member of mine went to Fresno Chaffee Zoo and apparently according to a couple keepers he talked to the zoo is NOT breeding their African Elephants at this time.
 
tigris115 said:
Which ones are these? Or is the footage too low res to tell?
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Not sure exactly, but a lot of us have assumed the bull is Jabali. He's 11 years old.

Not sure about the cow, there's plenty of options, but it looks to be Kianga or Nidirah.
 
Mr.Ivory said:
To me the female looks like Luna, and the bull looks on the smaller side so I'm assuming it's either Tsavo or Jabali, with Vasha in the background.
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The females a little larger than Luno imo. I was thinking Kianga or Nidirah, both of whom are around that size.
 
I’m like 95% sure that’s two cows in the video. The mounter is far too small to be Maclean, and Jabali and Tsavo both have larger, more curved tusks.

For anyone who watches the video, the announcer driving the tram even states they’re fairly sure it’s two girls.
 
Hyak_II said:
I’m like 95% sure that’s two cows in the video. The mounter is far too small to be Maclean, and Jabali and Tsavo both have larger, more curved tusks.

For anyone who watches the video, the announcer driving the tram even states they’re fairly sure it’s two girls.
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Why can’t Disney ever just give us a consistent breeding pair… ever… 8 breeding age animals, 3.5.
 
Hyak_II said:
I’m like 95% sure that’s two cows in the video. The mounter is far too small to be Maclean, and Jabali and Tsavo both have larger, more curved tusks.

For anyone who watches the video, the announcer driving the tram even states they’re fairly sure it’s two girls.
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Is this a normal behaviour for cows?
 
Jambo said:
Is this a normal behaviour for cows?
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Eh, it’s not super common, but not super rare, either.

Mounting is very common in youngsters of both genders mainly as a play behaviour, however it generally reduces in cows as they age. However that said, some will continue to mount in play even as adults, but generally it’s either mounting for dominance (with the mounter being the dominant of the two) or if both are cycling at the same time, their hormones can get the best of them and cause them to act up in unusual ways. I’ve also heard of, on one or two occasions, cows that have been joked about to be “gay”, they would rebuff any male attention, but would happily mount or allow themselves to be mounted by other cows, for no other reason than they seemingly enjoyed it.
 
John Marchwick said:
So a family member of mine went to Fresno Chaffee Zoo and apparently according to a couple keepers he talked to the zoo is NOT breeding their African Elephants at this time.
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What a shame. My last zoo trip was to Fresno Chaffee back on July 6th.

Now I'm curious about what Oakland Zoo will do with their elephants. Lisa is 44 or 45 and lately has been having health issues, and Donna is 43 or 44. Osh just turned 28 (I back-tracked and found a YouTube clip that celebrated his birthday). Pardon my ignorance but are Lisa and Donna past breeding age and is Osh viable for breeding if Oakland were thinking of keeping African elephants? I read that African elephant cows usually lose reproductive viability once they've hit 50 (then again, that was a study done on wild African elephants).

Now I'm curious to know if Oakland will keep African elephants in their collection when the time comes when Lisa and / or Donna pass.
 
macaw-maniac-91 said:
What a shame. My last zoo trip was to Fresno Chaffee back on July 6th.

Now I'm curious about what Oakland Zoo will do with their elephants. Lisa is 44 or 45 and lately has been having health issues, and Donna is 43 or 44. Osh just turned 28 (I back-tracked and found a YouTube clip that celebrated his birthday). Pardon my ignorance but are Lisa and Donna past breeding age and is Osh viable for breeding if Oakland were thinking of keeping African elephants? I read that African elephant cows usually lose reproductive viability once they've hit 50 (then again, that was a study done on wild African elephants).

Now I'm curious to know if Oakland will keep African elephants in their collection when the time comes when Lisa and / or Donna pass.
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I don't think Oakland has any plans to breed elephants. They only focuses on their welfare, it does not deal with breeding. Both Lisa and Donna had offspring between 1995 and 2001, but no calf survived. Now both are old for breeding. In fact, African cows rarely give birth after 35 years and almost never after 40 years of life (in captivity). Additionally, both cows had offspring a very long time ago, and cows shouldn't have more than ten years break between calves to maintain their reproductive health. Otherwise, they usually become infertile. So Oakland currently cannot have offspring, however their bull Osh is not that valuable because his bloodline is the most represented line in the world, so they probably don't deal with him too much.
 
macaw-maniac-91 said:
What a shame. My last zoo trip was to Fresno Chaffee back on July 6th.

Now I'm curious about what Oakland Zoo will do with their elephants. Lisa is 44 or 45 and lately has been having health issues, and Donna is 43 or 44. Osh just turned 28 (I back-tracked and found a YouTube clip that celebrated his birthday). Pardon my ignorance but are Lisa and Donna past breeding age and is Osh viable for breeding if Oakland were thinking of keeping African elephants? I read that African elephant cows usually lose reproductive viability once they've hit 50 (then again, that was a study done on wild African elephants).

Now I'm curious to know if Oakland will keep African elephants in their collection when the time comes when Lisa and / or Donna pass.
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I was there last weekend and I asked, about there elephants and they still put Donna and Osh out on exhibit together with the slim chance that Donna can still get pregnant but Osh hasn’t figured out what he is supposed to do (at his age I don’t think he will) and Lisa and Osh don’t get along. I was also shocked that some of the keepers want these to be that last elephants to be at Oakland including the lead keeper. But that doesn’t confirm if they will phase out of elephants.
 
Why would they wanna phase out elephants? They have an exhibit built for them that's pretty much one of the best in the nation. Is it like San Francisco where they never wanna keep elephants ever again (I still think San Fran can make the space)?
 
Yazziel said:
I was there last weekend and I asked, about there elephants and they still put Donna and Osh out on exhibit together with the slim chance that Donna can still get pregnant but Osh hasn’t figured out what he is supposed to do (at his age I don’t think he will) and Lisa and Osh don’t get along. I was also shocked that some of the keepers want these to be that last elephants to be at Oakland including the lead keeper. But that doesn’t confirm if they will phase out of elephants.
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If they do decide to phase out elephants, that space would actually be an insanely tricked out black rhino habitat with minor modifications...
 
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