North American African Elephant Population
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Mabu is now at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo to breed with Nolwazi and Amahle! This means Fresno Chaffee Zoo has a bull elephant again!
This is very promising news! While Mabu is very well represented now, it’s nice that he will finally get to breed with some new cows! Fresno should definitely have at least 1 calf on the ground within the next 2.5 years.
Mr.Ivory
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''Say hello to Mabu! We're excited to welcome a new African elephant to Fresno Chaffee Zoo.''
''His arrival came as a recommendation from the Elephant species survival plan (SSP) - one of nearly 500 cooperative animal programs run by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.''
''As an AZA accredited facility, we are proud to provide excellent animal care and help contribute to the future of species, like African elephants.''
with Mabu in the picture, that’s a fact for sure. I’m honestly surprised how quick that transfer went. Not only that but with Reid Park zoo no longer having a bull elephant I wonder what this means for elephant management with them? And I think Fresno is getting the picture finally that they need those girls pregnant ASAP.
Litsemba is probably pregnant, Reid Park confirmed on their social medias that Mabu bred her around February so it’s very likely she’s due late 2023. I’m assuming they’ll bring in a new bull a few years down the line to breed with Semba and her daughters.
that would make a lot of sense. I guess the Reid Park Zoo thought maybe then it was time to send him elsewhere. At this point now that Mabus there I’m not too worried about Fresno and breeding there at this point. What I AM worried about however is Vus Musi at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and how that’s gonna go.
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@John Marchwick thank you for making my point
He is reputed to be sterile. I live in Atlanta. The two cows with him are not breeding cows.
@ZCChip you are absolutely correct. But before he went to ATL, SDZ claimed him from Tampa, so confident they were going to breed him. Whelp.....SDZ is more lucky, than knowledgeable at breeding elephants.i hope the best with Musi for him to breed its going to take a very good African program for that to happen
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Fresno didn’t experience success with Musi, so sending him back to his birth place (which was withou a bull) was the next best option rather than letting him sit at Fresno where he obviously wasn’t succeeding.
Reid Park’s only adult breeding female is most likely pregnant, so they can do without a bull for the next few years.
The bull with no calves is Msholo; who’s never proven himself successful as a breeding bull. Of course it seems the EEP has now retired him to Atlanta, who have two cows both post reproductive.
Are the African elephants in North America pure African bush elephants, or do they have genes from forest elephants? It is unclear to me if both forest and bush elephants have subspecies, but are the African elephants (if there are subspecies) mixes of different bush elephant subspecies?
They’re ALL pure bush elephants. A small number of African forest elephant have been held in the United States and Canada in the past, but they all died or were transferred out by the mid 1900’s, with none of them ever breeding. I think the last one was a Forest Elephant bull held by African Lion Safari that was exported back to Africa in the 70’s or 80’s.
Also currently, African bush elephants are most widely accepted to be monotypic. Some people do still consider there to be different sub species, but regardless of that, they are managed on the species level in captivity, if there even is any different subspecies of them.
just curious, what happened to this elephant?
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