Oklahoma City Zoo announces pregnancies of 2 endangered elephants
The father of Acharas calf is Bowie, father of Ashas Calf is Rex.
The father of Acharas calf is Bowie, father of Ashas Calf is Rex.
North American Asian Elephant Population 2024
- Thread starter E Maximus
- Start date
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
2025 is looking like it's going to be a great year for Asian Elephant births! Between the four confirmed for the year we have two young first time mothers and two experienced cows, one of which is incredibly genetically valuable to the region. Not to mention we have a new young breeding bull in the form of Bowie!
Well, Saint Louis said Jade might be due in late 2024 or early 2025. So for all we know it could be 3 calves for 2025 and 1 for 2024. I’m honestly not surprised Oklahoma City Zoo got Achara pregnant so quick. In previous talks I’ve had with staff there, they told me as soon as she turned 8 years old they intended on breeding her and getting pregnant as quickly as possible. So far the 3 zoos that have been breeding their Asian Elephants starting at age 8 have been Houston Zoo, Fort Worth Zoo, and Oklahoma City Zoo these last couple of years. Tupelo at Houston was bred and got pregnant by the time she was 8 years old, Belle at Fort Worth got pregnant at around 8 years old too, and same now with Achara. And while Houston hasn’t had any births in nearly 3 years, I know @IndianRhino did state Joy has a breeding recommendation with Tucker. So I imagine that as soon as Joy turns 8, it’ll be the same thing there.
I would appreciate a short essay note as the news item is not visible our side of the Atlantic pond.
Nile Hippo Expert
Well-Known Member
Achara's calf will be third generation births on BOTH parents' sides. Also glad to see Rex still going strong with breeding at 56 years old!
try this link it will have more info than I’m listing https://www.okczoo.org/default.aspx?p=164942&naid=28806
It basically just says that Asian elephants, Asha (29) and her daughter Achara (9) are both pregnant due in 2025. Both pregnancies were confirmed via blood test and ultrasounds. Asha is due first with a due date of April 2025 and Achara second and is due July 2025. Rex (56) is the assumed father of Asha’s now 5th calf and Bowie (10) the bull transferred from Fort Worth is the assumed father of Achara’s calf which will be her first.
they’re not assumed the fathers are. The zoo confirmed they are.
As someone with more knowledge of the situation, I said what I said. Kandula was seen breeding with at least one of the cows, so there’s no way to tell the paternity till after the calf is born. It’s “assumed” because they can not confirm if he for lack of better words, got the job done. He has a history of “poor aim” so to speak but like the other two bulls was given access to the cows during both their cycling periods.
But why would the zoo say than the confirmed identities of the fathers?
Good question, but again no one can say “we’re certain” when there’s photos of both Rex/Kandula and Bowie/Kandula mounting and actively attempting to breed the respective cows. But I mean we’re talking about the same zoo that assumed Rama was a boy before they could even get their hands on her and continued this assumption up until she was what 3-4 months old blaming it on her “larger than normal external tissue”.
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You aren't more knowledgeable about OKC Zoo's elephant herd than the OKC Zoo. If the OKC Zoo is stating who the fathers are, then that's who the fathers are. To suggest otherwise is flat-out disrespectful to the zoo. Whatever the reason may be, OKC Zoo knows who the fathers of these calves are or else they wouldn't have shared that information.
I’m not about to argue on a forums page, but again I stated my points on why I said what I said. If you go back and watch the new releases from Sedgewick county and Omaha’s respective pregnancy announcements you’d even have further evidence to show this as their CEO even states that they can’t reliably test paternity until after the calf is born. It’s also rude of you to assume I don’t know what I know when you have no idea who I am or what I do outside of these forums. I’ve shared quite enough to show my knowledge without giving away too much in terms of sensitive information and can say I know much more than 90% of members who comment on this thread and the respective zoos social media teams.
And for your second point, zoos pr/social media teams post information all the time that’s not accurate. They do what’s best in terms of the zoos “image” and again that’s coming from someone with more knowledge on this these things work than most.
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The zoo could have any number of reasons they are certain of who the fathers are. Staff members could've observed the mating attempts and know they were unsuccessful. Kandula could be a non-breeder for medical reasons none of us are aware of. The zoo could've matched how far along the pregnancy is with the timings of the mating attempts to ascertain who the father is. Unless you work at the OKC Zoo or are a member of the steering committee for the Asian Elephant SSP, then the people at the zoo know more than you and it is 100% disrespectful to claim you know more about these animals than those who actually work with them.
The zoo's "image" doesn't depend on who the sire of two elephant calves are, lol. The PR department had literally no reason to make something up, and seeing as the video on FB is with the zoo's actual elephant keepers, the zoo is clearly confident in knowing who sired the two offspring.
@E Maximus is right. PR has screwed up at multiple facilities I've worked for, including correct dams and sires. There are a couple elephants in particular I know whose sire for years have been wrong.
No where in that video did any keeper say who the sire’s were of either calf. It was a video put together by their PR/Social media team to announce their pregnancies. These videos are literally scripted and what you can or can not say is approved by both the social media/pr team as well as upper zoo management. And again, you’re assuming what I do or who I am and obviously you don’t know either of those. I have stated the reasons to why it’s an assumption so if you have further questions I’d be more than happy to discuss addressing them in private but remember as you and many others have said before, a zoos PR/Social media team doesn’t alway give you the full picture. At the end of the day PR’s job is to drive attendance and protect the zoos image. The more information they can push the better their image the better their image the more people visit and the more people visit, the more revenue they bring in.
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Incorrect.
If the sire is indeed Bowie, this will actually be North America‘s very first fourth generation captive bred Asian elephant! (Unless there’s other pregnancies afoot that we aren’t aware of at the moment) While Archara is a partial second generation captive bred animal, Bowie is a partial third gen, through his sires side (F0 Bandara->F1 Chanda->F2 Samson->F3 Bowie->F4 2025 calf)
Nile Hippo Expert
Well-Known Member
If I remember correctly, was Bowie born through AI because I don't recall his parents ever living together?
Yes he was, Samson was living at ABQ at the time.
Frankie_number_1_fan
Well-Known Member
Unsure if this is old news, but according to a new post by Forth Worth, 1 year old calf Travis is receiving behind the scenes playdates with half brother Brazos, but Travis is still too small to share the same space with him.
That’s really intriguing to hear.
Travis is only eighteen months younger, and with Travis now one year of age he should be old enough to be in with Brazos.
In saying that, with calves that have age gaps like that, both are very much at different stages of development socially and physically and therefore don’t get along as well as calves of similar age. This shouldn’t stop them being together, but may be part of the reason why they aren’t kept together yet.