Smithsonian National Zoo Smithsonian National Zoo News 2015

[AmbikaFan]

To be honest I don't think those plans are up to date because they're from 2007/2008 but every time I see a zoo official talk about the master plan they always say something on the lines of "as part of our 2012 programmatic master plan".

Also I've seen those documents before.

I could be wrong, because I live in NJ and don't hear scuttlebutt or get the Washington Post, but I think there's a difference between the 20-year Master Plan for infrastructure and the 5-Year Programmatic Plan, the key word being programmatic. The latter doesn't deal with facilities. There was a 2012 Facilities Master Plan update that reported on progress toward the retaining wall that has now been completed.

National Zoo Facilities Master Plan - National Zoo| FONZ

There's no doubt that the economic downfall of 2008 slowed the pace of any planned projects, as they delay to 2012 to begin even the structurally-needed retaining wall. I guess the question is: Is the zoo planning to continue with the approved Plan C, just over a longer term, or will any new efforts go back to the drawing board?

Thank you for your kind offer of photographs. Would you be so kind as to take a wonderful picture of Shanthi, Ambika, and Kandula each for me? I'm feeling really sentimental about them all today.

 

[AmbikaFan]

Hi Ambika,
I have a question, and you're obviously pretty knowledgeable. My understanding of elephant husbandry, at least in the UK, is that the most desirable set up is a matriachal herd, with bulls staying for 6-8 years (or until their daughters are mature).
Why then would the National Zoo have had a plan to keep a long-term breeding male?
Hope you can clear this up for me. Also, welcome to zoochat
FG

FYI I just stumbled across this old Zoogoer article about Asian elephants in the US from 1994 to its publication in 2002. It expresses a good bit of how we could expect to be keeping Kandula and developing a breeding herd back then.

http://static1.squarespace.com/stat...3d0/1396284695672/MakingRoomFor+Elephants.pdf

 

[dcpandafan]

Thank you for your kind offer of photographs. Would you be so kind as to take a wonderful picture of Shanthi, Ambika, and Kandula each for me? I'm feeling really sentimental about them all today.

Well I don't know about trying to get a picture of Ambika because I think almost every photo of an elephant I've posted before has been of Ambika except for maybe 2 or 3.

Kandula I can try but I don't know about Shanti because after the ones from calgary came I can't tell them apart anymore.

 

[dcpandafan]

but I think there's a difference between the 20-year Master Plan for infrastructure and the 5-Year Programmatic Plan, the key word being programmatic. The latter doesn't deal with facilities.
.

Screenshot by Lightshot

She says "this is what the national zoo could like in 20 years" and the book clearly says programmatic master plan.

 

[AmbikaFan]

Well I don't know about trying to get a picture of Ambika because I think almost every photo of an elephant I've posted before has been of Ambika except for maybe 2 or 3.

Kandula I can try but I don't know about Shanti because after the ones from calgary came I can't tell them apart anymore.

Totally understood. I've not yet explored the photo gallery here, so that may provide me just what I yearn for. If it helps, the herd is almost always divided in two different areas---Shanthi, Ambika, and Bozie and, separately, Sharna, Maharani, and Kamala. Since Shanthi (who has some arthritis in her wrist) and Ambika like to sleep in the sand stall, these three are given the barn and yard 3, which is the one closest to the viewing area and the one that shifts into yard 4, the Outpost. Shanthi is easily the tallest of these three and the darkest, also with the smallest domes. Ambika has the wide band of depigmentation mid-trunk, a pink band down the edge of each ear, and the "chew" she always has in the corner of her mouth. After that, Bozie is the one left, with big domes, a kind of smile, and more vocalization than Ambika or Shanthi.

Of the Calgary girls, Sharna is very dark and very tiny. She's sometimes alone all by herself, but occasionally with the Ambika group too. Kamala and Maharani as mother-daughter do look a good bit alike, but Maharani is taller. Maharani also seems to be the least "laid back." Numerous times, I've seen her shriek about something, and Kamala and Swarna come running to her aid, only to find that it's no big deal.

These girls don't have the kind of elephant social interaction we're used to seeing, because Swarna and Kamala (and male Bandara) all came to Calgary as young calves and had no older elephants to teach them socialization skills. Perhaps this is why all six girls aren't spending time as a single matriarchal herd.

 

[dcpandafan]

Totally understood. I've not yet explored the photo gallery here, so that may provide me just what I yearn for. If it helps, the herd is almost always divided in two different areas---Shanthi, Ambika, and Bozie and, separately, Sharna, Maharani, and Kamala. Since Shanthi (who has some arthritis in her wrist) and Ambika like to sleep in the sand stall, these three are given the barn and yard 3, which is the one closest to the viewing area and the one that shifts into yard 4, the Outpost. Shanthi is easily the tallest of these three and the darkest, also with the smallest domes. Ambika has the wide band of depigmentation mid-trunk, a pink band down the edge of each ear, and the "chew" she always has in the corner of her mouth. After that, Bozie is the one left, with big domes, a kind of smile, and more vocalization than Ambika or Shanthi.

Of the Calgary girls, Sharna is very dark and very tiny. She's sometimes alone all by herself, but occasionally with the Ambika group too. Kamala and Maharani as mother-daughter do look a good bit alike, but Maharani is taller. Maharani also seems to be the least "laid back." Numerous times, I've seen her shriek about something, and Kamala and Swarna come running to her aid, only to find that it's no big deal.

These girls don't have the kind of elephant social interaction we're used to seeing, because Swarna and Kamala (and male Bandara) all came to Calgary as young calves and had no older elephants to teach them socialization skills. Perhaps this is why all six girls aren't spending time as a single matriarchal herd.

Thanks this helps a lot.

And not just in the gallery but almost every elephant picture I have is of Ambika.

Screenshot by Lightshot

This is only for 1 trip.

 

[dcpandafan]

I've uploaded some new pictures of my last trip to the gallery that didn't load onto my computer until today.

 

[AmbikaFan]

Screenshot by Lightshot

She says "this is what the national zoo could like in 20 years" and the book clearly says programmatic master plan.

I've never seen this book! I thought you were referring to this:

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/AboutUs/Mission/NZP_Our_Plan_to_Save_Species.pdf

I think all the original 2008 plans are still underway; at least they were in 2012 when this amendment for fencing was filed for approval:

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/AboutUs/Mission/NZP_Our_Plan_to_Save_Species.pdf

Thanks for pointing me toward your pictures, dcpandafan.

 

[dcpandafan]

I thought you would like it but here's a picture of Shanti and Ambika meeting Nancy for the first time.

Also since you said Great Cats has aged well since it opened here's a picture of it when it opened.

 

[ctfctf7]

Was today Kandula's send off party?

 

[dcpandafan]

Was today Kandula's send off party?

Goodbye but I don't know if he left today.

 

[AmbikaFan]

Was today Kandula's send off party?

Yes. Anyone know how it went?

 

[AmbikaFan]

I thought you would like it but here's a picture of Shanti and Ambika meeting Nancy for the first time.

Also since you said Great Cats has aged well since it opened here's a picture of it when it opened.

Thank you so much! If this is truly their first greeting with Nancy, than this is actually of Shanti and not the Shanthi we know! There was a previous Shanti who lived at the zoo until her death 12/15/76. Shanthi was given to the US by Sri Lanka 12/29/76 1976. I can only guess that visitors and staff were so bereaved that they instantly named the new calf in memory of the first Shanti. I was actively coming to the zoo at this time, but I don't really remember Shanti at all. I'm also equally without memory of a terrible incident involving Nancy pushing an amorous breeding bull into the moat, injuring him so badly that he was sent away and died of his injuries. The bull turned out to a rare forest elephant, in a day when this distinction probably wasn't understood.

 

[AmbikaFan]

I thought you would like it but here's a picture of Shanti and Ambika meeting Nancy for the first time.

Also since you said Great Cats has aged well since it opened here's a picture of it when it opened.

It has aged well. Mature landscaping has made it less like the stark concrete layered Bundt-cake pan it is. LOL I said it had aged well--I never said I liked it!

 

[dcpandafan]

Thank you so much! If this is truly their first greeting with Nancy, than this is actually of Shanti and not the Shanthi we know! There was a previous Shanti who lived at the zoo until her death 12/15/76. Shanthi was given to the US by Sri Lanka 12/29/76 1976. I can only guess that visitors and staff were so bereaved that they instantly named the new calf in memory of the first Shanti. I was actively coming to the zoo at this time, but I don't really remember Shanti at all. I'm also equally without memory of a terrible incident involving Nancy pushing an amorous breeding bull into the moat, injuring him so badly that he was sent away and died of his injuries. The bull turned out to a rare forest elephant, in a day when this distinction probably wasn't understood.

Picture is from 1988. And I think I was mistaken as after reading it, it says.

Nancy, the National Zoological Park's (NZP) African elephant, introduces herself to Shanthi and Ambika, NZP's Asian elephants, while Collection Manager John Lehnhardt (lower l.) and keepers Kathy Wallace and Marie Galloway eavesdrop. Ambika responds by permitting Nancy to touch her trunk.

but doesn't mention if it was the first time or not.

Also was the bulls name you were talking about named Djimbo?

^Nancy not Djimbo.

ShowMe Elephants: John Romo Collection - National Zoo

ShowMe Elephants: National Zoo - Dzimbo

Also do you know what happened to Jayathu?

Upon her arrival in this country from Sri Lanka, National Zoological Park baby elephant Jayathu receives a pat from President Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1984.

 

[AmbikaFan]

Picture is from 1988. And I think I was mistaken as after reading it, it says.



but doesn't mention if it was the first time or not.

Also was the bulls name you were talking about named Djimbo?

^Nancy not Djimbo.

ShowMe Elephants: John Romo Collection - National Zoo

ShowMe Elephants: National Zoo - Dzimbo

Also do you know what happened to Jayathu?

Marie Galloway is Elephant Manager now and has been at the zoo since 1987, so with the date of 1988, this is clearly a 13-year-old Shanthi, not Shanti. I have no idea why they would use the word "introduce" when they had all been there for years, Nancy and Ambika nearly 30 years.

Yes, it was Dzimbo. Isn't that ShowMe site a wealth of information? I wish it were still active.

Jayathu died 2 months later. Perhaps she was one of the calves retroactively diagnosed in 1995 with EEHV? How different the NZP elephant herd might be today had she lived and bred!

 

[dcpandafan]

Marie Galloway is Elephant Manager now and has been at the zoo since 1987, so with the date of 1988, this is clearly a 13-year-old Shanthi, not Shanti. I have no idea why they would use the word "introduce" when they had all been there for years, Nancy and Ambika nearly 30 years.

Yes, it was Dzimbo. Isn't that ShowMe site a wealth of information? I wish it were still active.

Jayathu died 2 months later. Perhaps she was one of the calves retroactively diagnosed in 1995 with EEHV? How different the NZP elephant herd might be today had she lived and bred!

No no she was given to the US from Sri Lanka in the 1980's.

Not really for you but here's a picture of a bongo at the zoo.

Because i'm really interested in the zoo whenever I have nothing to do all I do is look for old pictures of the zoo.

I've been looking so much I've become sick of all my normal songs that i'm listening to "For the first time in forever" from Frozen... help me.

 

[AmbikaFan]

No no she was given to the US from Sri Lanka in the 1980's.

Yes. Jayathu came in June of 1984 and died two months later. It wasn't until Kumari died in 1995 that Smithsonian biologists isolated the EEHV and linked it back to a number of deaths going back a decade or more. I'm wondering if Jayathu could have been one of those diagnosed after the fact. It's in this article:

http://static1.squarespace.com/stat...3d0/1396284695672/MakingRoomFor+Elephants.pdf

Well, you've found another person who loves old architecture and land-use design, so I've enjoyed your photos very much. I'm not very good at my giraffes, but this is either Randle or Jana the Masais who left when the elephant barn was built or a much earlier giraffe I think was a Rothschilds, perhaps named Jeffrey? This jaguar is really beautiful. I have only the dimmest memories of there being any jaguar at the zoo, so I'm guessing this goes back to the era of the polar bear, late 60s, early 70s. I can't for the life of me figure out where this exhibit is unless it was among those big cat cages/enclosures that used to be stacked
on the current Great Cats hill.

You know so much that you've probably seen it, but this is my favorite picture of Lovely Lady Ambika:

A Trunk Full of Memories - National Zoo| FONZ

 

[dcpandafan]

Yes. Jayathu came in June of 1984 and died two months later. It wasn't until Kumari died in 1995 that Smithsonian biologists isolated the EEHV and linked it back to a number of deaths going back a decade or more. I'm wondering if Jayathu could have been one of those diagnosed after the fact. It's in this article:

http://static1.squarespace.com/stat...3d0/1396284695672/MakingRoomFor+Elephants.pdf

Well, you've found another person who loves old architecture and land-use design, so I've enjoyed your photos very much. I'm not very good at my giraffes, but this is either Randle or Jana the Masais who left when the elephant barn was built or a much earlier giraffe I think was a Rothschilds, perhaps named Jeffrey? This jaguar is really beautiful. I have only the dimmest memories of there being any jaguar at the zoo, so I'm guessing this goes back to the era of the polar bear, late 60s, early 70s. I can't for the life of me figure out where this exhibit is unless it was among those big cat cages/enclosures that used to be stacked
on the current Great Cats hill.

You know so much that you've probably seen it, but this is my favorite picture of Lovely Lady Ambika:

A Trunk Full of Memories - National Zoo| FONZ

Never seen the photo before and i'm assuming you mean the one of her in 1967?

Also the pictures are from 1982 so great cats was built already.

The jaguar is the first animal on the polar bear trail in blue.

 

[ZooElephantMan]

When they get rid of the great ape house, will they make a new exhibit for apes?