Johnson has to be the sire of Gigi unless George isn't actually castrated, which is unlikely imo.
Likely the reason they're keeping her is because of the controversy the last time they had plans to move cows. This was years back but iirc they planned to move a few of their younger girls (at the time) to Fort Worth before there was a massive upset over it (deserved, I believe this move would involve splitting mother/daughter pairs). Moving her by herself would be questionable and there hasn't really been any options for other ALS cows to ship out with her.
I hate to say this, but she's probably been allowed to breed with Johnson multiple times so she remains reproductive by the time they get a new bull. Not to mention the logistics of separating ONLY Emily/a few other cows at a time from Johnson would be tedious and not very feasible for ALS' facility.
I have to admit, I'm desperately curious:
Why was George castrated in the first place? Was it a behavioral thing? A medical condition? Was ALS concerned that they couldn't handle having two intact bull elephants at the same time?
I was aware that ALS had run afoul of Animal Rights Activists back in 2020 when they tried to sell a pair of cows to Fort Worth Zoo...
But I
wasn't aware that Emily was one of those cows! So ALS
did try to move her on! (Granted,
five years after the birth of Gigi. But I guess they get points for trying?)
Now, Emily's own mother Kitty died back in 2016. So the ARA's wringing over "separating mother-daughter pairs!" (Yes, I am aware that mothers and daughters stay together for life in the wild.)
couldn't have applied to Emily! So I assume that Nellie was being sent with her as a companion, to help ease the transition into a new herd.
I do have to wonder though... Why Nellie? Was Gigi already dead by 2020? I guess she must've been? Otherwise, why didn't ALS simply offer Fort Worth Emily
and Gigi instead of Emily and an unrelated calf? The ARA's wouldn't have been able to use the "Separating mothers and daughters is animal cruelty!" angle that way.
I suppose ALS could've moved Emily with her mother Kitty, as she
was still alive in 2013. (Granted, as previously mentioned, Kitty did die three years later in 2016 at 51 years of age.)
Although I can understand why they might not've gone for that idea, considering Kitty was basically geriatric and it's hardly best practice to move elderly animals long-distances. And of course, not many zoos would be lining up to accept an old cow elephant, even if she came with a young and hopefully fertile daughter.
As far as the inbreeding goes, half-siblings aren't the absolute
worst. They only share 25% of their DNA in common, which, while still a
fair bit...
At least it's not 50%. Like say, a father/daughter (Or mother/son or full brother/full sister) pairing would produce. And I
know incest to that degree has occurred in zoos before.
Generally speaking, you can usually "get away" with a single generation of incest anyway. It's only when you do it for
multiple generations that you tend to start seeing freaky stuff. Still, best to avoid it if at all possible.
