North American African Elephant Population 2025

StoppableSan said:
Zoo Elephants Going to New Home in 2027

Roger Williams Park Zoo will be sending its African elephants, Alice, Kate and Ginny to a new facility.
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All 3 elephants came in around the early 1990's from a ... (Allen Campbell) and are all evenly aged at 38 now and absolutely post-reproductive and as @Jambo observed ... have never ever reproduced. Incidentally, an AI procedure was done on cow Alice in 2007 twice which turned out to be unsuccessful.

Now the average cut-off date for first reproduction is 20 years of age ..., and as all three have a respectable age now .... they will now never ever be able to breed anymore.
 
zoologicus said:
Simunye delivered a stillborn female calf on March 14th at Sedgwick County Zoo who was named Malaika, meaning angel — Log in to Facebook
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Absolutely devasting news for the population and even more so for Simunye as this would have been her only known daughter, though hopefully when and if the mourning period passes she will be allowed to breed with Callee.
 
zoologicus said:
Simunye delivered a stillborn female calf on March 14th at Sedgwick County Zoo who was named Malaika, meaning angel — Log in to Facebook
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Devastating news all round, especially with this being such a highly anticipated birth (the first in Sedgwick’s history and the first of five births this year).

Given the four young cows (Talia, Arusi, Xolani, and Zuberi) are expecting their first calves this year and arrived at an estimated six years of age; this would have been an ideal opportunity for them to again observe the rearing of a calf by an experienced mother ahead of their own births.

I hope things go well for the remaining expectant cows, especially considering none of them have delivered a calf before.
 
zoologicus said:
Simunye delivered a stillborn female calf on March 14th at Sedgwick County Zoo who was named Malaika, meaning angel — Log in to Facebook
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One touching thing I'd like to note - it's really nice to see Sedgewick naming the calf (despite it being stillborn). Not many zoos have done this, if any at all.

Hopefully Simunye will receive the opportunity to breed again and there aren't any repercussions from this stillbirth. It is worth noting this calf was her first in fifteen years. It would've been a record had this calf survived considering the birth interval.

I do hope everything goes well with the upcoming other four births. With Simunye now without a calf, hopefully she will be able to assist the other cows come their births.

Meanwhile, Talia should be the next cow due.
 
Jambo said:
One touching thing I'd like to note - it's really nice to see Sedgewick naming the calf (despite it being stillborn). Not many zoos have done this, if any at all.

Hopefully Simunye will receive the opportunity to breed again and there aren't any repercussions from this stillbirth. It is worth noting this calf was her first in fifteen years. It would've been a record had this calf survived considering the birth interval.

I do hope everything goes well with the upcoming other four births. With Simunye now without a calf, hopefully she will be able to assist the other cows come their births.

Meanwhile, Talia should be the next cow due.
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It is a silver lining that there are more cows due that hopefully will allow her to participate in the raising of calves in a herd setting, the most ideal scenario considering the circumstances.
I really hope she is given the oppertunity to breed again, as it seems something went wrong in the birthing process as opposed to the pregnancy itself. However given the likely lengthy interval between offspring, that could've been a factor. It's impossible to say however, and we can only hope she is well enough to breed in the future again.
 
Frankie_number_1_fan said:
It is a silver lining that there are more cows due that hopefully will allow her to participate in the raising of calves in a herd setting, the most ideal scenario considering the circumstances.
I really hope she is given the oppertunity to breed again, as it seems something went wrong in the birthing process as opposed to the pregnancy itself. However given the likely lengthy interval between offspring, that could've been a factor. It's impossible to say however, and we can only hope she is well enough to breed in the future again.
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Since Simunye has bred before, I’m hopeful this has just been an isolated incident within her reproductive history, albeit a very unfortunate one. In any case, stillbirths are far from uncommon in this species as a whole.

Optimsitically, she could conceive again as early as the second half of 2025; though I imagine the zoo will want to take stock of what live calves they have on the ground from this cohort and review a plan from there. Of course we all hope for four live births to follow this; but the unfortunate loss of any further calves would present the opportunity for Simunye to breed again in a cohort scenario (which would have been so beneficial to this calf’s development), rather than being the lone straggler 2-3 years the junior of this cohort. Best case scaneiro (and all four calves to come survive), they may opt for a longer gap before trying to breed from her again.
 
Zoofan15 said:
Since Simunye has bred before, I’m hopeful this has just been an isolated incident within her reproductive history, albeit a very unfortunate one. In any case, stillbirths are far from uncommon in this species as a whole.

Optimsitically, she could conceive again as early as the second half of 2025; though I imagine the zoo will want to take stock of what live calves they have on the ground from this cohort and review a plan from there. Of course we all hope for four live births to follow this; but the unfortunate loss of any further calves would present the opportunity for Simunye to breed again in a cohort scenario (which would have been so beneficial to this calf’s development), rather than being the lone straggler 2-3 years the junior of this cohort. Best case scaneiro (and all four calves to come survive), they may opt for a longer gap before trying to breed from her again.
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A big factor is going to be avaliable space above all else imo. Sedgwick is currently pretty much at capacity and would struggle with a second cohort until their expansion. I imagine that in the best case scenario they'll wait 4-5 years or so and aim for the five girls to become pregnant around the same time again. Even if they space the next group of calves our (IE Omaha), I'm fairly confident Sedgwick will aim for at least two births close together next time around.
 
Frankie_number_1_fan said:
A big factor is going to be avaliable space above all else imo. Sedgwick is currently pretty much at capacity and would struggle with a second cohort until their expansion. I imagine that in the best case scenario they'll wait 4-5 years or so and aim for the five girls to become pregnant around the same time again. Even if they space the next group of calves our (IE Omaha), I'm fairly confident Sedgwick will aim for at least two births close together next time around.
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That’s certainly a reasonable birth interval for Simunye, with the impetus to breed from her again within the next eight years (with eight years being what most agree would be the upper limit of a safe birth interval for maintaining reproductive health).

In addition to working with the capacity of the facility, it’d ensure female calves retained from this cohort within the herd would be a help, not a hindrance to future calves - with the added benefit of those females observing the raising of calves by what will then be experienced mothers.
 
loxodontaafrica said:
Apologies if this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but Shaba, 45 year old female at the San Diego Zoo, will be transferred to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park to (hopefully) integrate with the herd there.
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I mentioned this in last year's thread.
Nile Hippo Expert said:
The San Diego Zoo plans to move 0.1 Shaba over to the Safari Park sometime in the next year to give her companionship in her golden years and so that the zoo can focus entirely on a bachelor herd.
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loxodontaafrica said:
Apologies if this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but Shaba, 45 year old female at the San Diego Zoo, will be transferred to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park to (hopefully) integrate with the herd there.
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The plan is for this to occur once the new Elephant Valley redevelopment is completed.

This will allow San Diego to focus on being a bachelor facility for the foreseeable and allow Shaba to have female companionship once again following Mary's passing two years ago.
 
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