He could be there to breed other females. Inbreeding has happened in the past. Mother to son or father to daughter. And no lightening struck..
North American Asian and African Elephant Populations: Discussion and Speculation
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He could be there to breed other females. Inbreeding has happened in the past. Mother to son or father to daughter. And no lightening struck..
Frankie_number_1_fan
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Of course it's happened before, but nowadays its relatively frowned upon not only from a population standpoint (weakens genes) but also from a publicity standpoint. It's doubtlessly bad publicity to have a mother-son pair producing offspring together.He could be there to breed other females. Inbreeding has happened in the past. Mother to son or father to daughter. And no lightening struck..
He could be there to breed other females. Inbreeding has happened in the past. Mother to son or father to daughter. And no lightening struck..
He does. Vus Musi has Swazi, Umgani, Phakamile, Khosi, Qinsa and soon Mkhaya.
it’s also possible they could just artificially inseminate Ndula too as another way to avoid her from becoming pregnant through her son.
I think it will be fine.
fine as in it is not going to happen. She may not be in the group when he is with the group. They may split her off with a buddy or two for a few hours. It can happen in the wild when the herd splits for a few hours or so.They could bring in another bull for her. The facility from what I can tell is large enough for another bull.
We won’t know the plans until it has happened or close to the event.
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
I believe it's also plausible they just could be choosing to retire her from breeding if AI isn't in the cards. She's only about a half decade away from becoming post-reproductive anyway, and with Musi being her son it's not like her genes will be underutilized if he sires calves with the 5 (soon 6) females.
As mentioned, his social skills had regressed at Fresno so I'm wondering if that was the intention with him transferring back to the Safari Park. They have one of the biggest and most socially dynamic herds in the region so they would've been the best choice for him to re-learn his social skills and further develop his ability when interacting with cows.
He can mate with a lot of the cows too - all but his mother, so this move doesn't affect much breeding wise there. Although his mother can still breed, they may be banking on her genetics being represented through Musi going forward there. She still has Zuli too.
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
It is a shame he wasn't able to do better at Fresno. I wonder why he didn't mesh with them? Musi is a very valuable young bull and his genes would've done wonders there. Obviously getting Fresno's girls pregnant asap was the goal, but it is a shame we had to rely on Mabu again to do it.
Musi showing signs of potential mating at the safari park is remarkably promising though I will say. As mentioned previously he is one of the most valuable bulls in the region, so having him as a proven breeder would be a great step in the right direction for the breeding program as a whole. Fingers crossed we get news of confirmed breeding behavior and that other wildborn young bulls (IE Titian) follow in his footsteps!
Musi showing signs of potential mating at the safari park is remarkably promising though I will say. As mentioned previously he is one of the most valuable bulls in the region, so having him as a proven breeder would be a great step in the right direction for the breeding program as a whole. Fingers crossed we get news of confirmed breeding behavior and that other wildborn young bulls (IE Titian) follow in his footsteps!
Musi was only 11 when he came to Fresno. That is too young for an African bull elephant to be mixed with females. Females will accept a bull only when he is dominant and mature enough - physically and emotionally. Between a mature bull and females, the interactions are usually friendly right from the beginning, the females will be respectful and the bull has no reason to be aggressive or assert his doninance and thereful will behave like a gentleman. If the bull is too young and/or too insecure, the females will not be respectful and the bull often becomes aggressive while trying to dominate the females. And of course female elephants will not allow a male to mate with them who is not dominant.
That‘s not a good situation at all but it‘s caused by management mistakes.
My guess is San Diego took him back because there was no other option for him, there are far too few bull groups in the US. But now he is much older and when carefully introduced to the females, especially the young ones, it may work out fine. He grew up in this big social group and had the opportunity to learn everything he needs to be a sucessful breeding bull.
That‘s not a good situation at all but it‘s caused by management mistakes.
My guess is San Diego took him back because there was no other option for him, there are far too few bull groups in the US. But now he is much older and when carefully introduced to the females, especially the young ones, it may work out fine. He grew up in this big social group and had the opportunity to learn everything he needs to be a sucessful breeding bull.
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
(Segwaying from population thread)
Both are currently in place as breeding bulls at other facilities. Tampa only recently restarted efforts to breed, so there's no reason for Sdhula to move for at least a few more years. And Tendaji similarly only just proved himself as a natural breeder and has sired a singular calf. He is in a wonderful position to breed with wildborn cows to build up Dallas' breeding program. I would call neither prolific bulls (which what my list was, not proven bulls as a whole) and both were certianly not options for San Diego
Disney also hasn’t had a calf until Corra in like 7 years. Maclean is not a prolific breeder, at least not yet anyways.
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
I'd say he's breeding fairly regularly (revent calves in 2010, 2016 and 2023).
Im not fully sure of Animal Kingdom's facility design in terms of seperation, so he very well may be kept mostly seperate from the females for the sake of avoiding him breeding with his daughters. With four calves, he's technically the bull with the 4th largest number of offspring in NA. Sure he follows Mabu, Jackson and Callee, but he is the runner up nevertheless lol.
and Sdhula had 2 calves (2012, 2013). He has 3 descendants, Maclean only has 1 more calf than he does. Maclean has 4 descendants and for a while too Disney stopped breeding elephants, both both ZooTampa and Disney picked back up on elephant breeding these last couple of years.
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
I imagine we will see both pick up the slack at their respective facilities soon then. If they both were producing calves naturally then we shouldn't see an issue with breeding. Both are very valuable bulls so hopefully we will see many more calves from them and see them bridge the gap between Mabu, Jackson and Callee's numbers!
But back to my main point, we only have five naturally proven bulls that have sired more than one calf. The options for bulls at any facility hoping to breed are ridiculously slim. Several breeding facilities are without active bulls currently. Omaha, Toledo, Reid Park, Indianapolis...it is vital that younger bulls are placed in breeding situations, even though they are at younger ages then might be ideal. Thankfully younger bulls ARE stepping up (Tendaji for example) and proving themselves.
Indianapolis and Toledo both have bulls, the issue is is that they’re not proven breeders. And yes Maclean and Sdhula have all sired their calves naturally since 2010. At the end of the day, I’m not gonna pretend anymore I know what zoos breeding intentions nor act like I know what’s in that animals best interest. It wasn’t that long ago when Tendaji and Callee weren’t proven breeders themselves. I think we just need to be patient with something like this, as it’s gonna take decades being this point well rehashed over and over again for African elephant population numbers to be better as well as breeding to get better.
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
Hence why I said active breeding bulls ^^
Considering neither Kedar nor Ajani grew up witnessing breeding, the odds of them ever proving themselves is slim imo. Both have had years around clearly fertile females but no dice.
The wildborn younger bulls (Titian, Tendaji and Musi for instance) all theoretically should have few issues breeding once adjusted.
The issue now isn't facilities not breeding (to say the population is having trouble would be laughable given the amount of pregnancies in the next few years alone), its the issue with behavioral non-breedes. It is all but widely recognized fact that bull calves which don't witness breeding bulls in action will likely end up unable to present breeding behaviors themselves. Of the current male calves, Sonny and Mopani (Omaha) and Jabari (Indy) are without breeding bull mentors, and so will (albiet potentially given we don't know the gender of these calves) the calves born at Reid Park and Toledo.
This isn't to say those facilities WON'T bring in active bulls, but the odds of it happening in the near future at any of the facilities honestly seem slim.
Luna was AI calf, far as I know the only natural breending calf are Stella and Corra
https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/b...nt-a-girl-arrives-at-disney’s-animal-kingdom/
Mr.Ivory
Well-Known Member
As well as Kianga and Nadirah both where sired by Jackson when he stayed from 2001-2004
Tendaji is an active breeding bull, has sired a calf and is a proven breeding bull so I’m not sure why you’re saying he has issues breeding. Ajani and Kedar, I’m not speculating there cause just cause they’re not breeding now, doesn’t mean they cant figure out how to breed. We have no idea or I at least don’t know why they haven’t had luck, though I did here around a year ago that Kedar had been showing interest in breeding with Zahara but I don’t know what means nor am I gonna speculate further on that cause that could mean so many things.
just so you know too, just because the 3 males Sonny, Mopani and Jabari aren’t around breeding bulls now, doesn’t mean they won’t eventually be around a breeding bull. We have no idea what Omaha nor Indianapolis’s intentions are, they know what’s best for their animals, and they certainly know more about elephant care and welfare than I certainly do. And the calves expected to be born at Toledo and Reid Park, they could be girls those calves born for all we know. There’s no point in speculating on something like that when we don’t even know the gender of the calves yet.
we have no idea what facilities will or will not bring an active breeding bull, and for all we know other bulls (Tamani at Kansas City, Titan at Sedgwick County, Vus Musi at San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Samson at Maryland Zoo, Jabali and Tsavo at Disneys Animal Kingdom). I just think the best thing we can do is be patient. I personally have been wrong about so many things when it comes to elephants and was stupid enough in the past to post ridiculous claims and speculation over the things that I thought I knew what I was talking about, only to be later get proven wrong. We have a long ways to go with the elephant population still in the United States, which I think almost everyone on here by now is aware of. But for example with calves being born, we went from 1-2 born in years between 2020-2022, we had 5 born in 2023. My point is don’t repeat my mistakes of judging a facility so quickly, cause we don’t know the full story at the end of day in terms of why that particular elephant is managed or cared for the way it is.