ZSL Whipsnade Zoo elephant and rhino births at whipsnade

Yes, I think so- I'm not sure if its an extension or a brand new building though. They have access to the same outdoor area as before(that was enlarged considerably a few years ago, with big waterfall & pool added)
I haven't seen it recently but Chester do very good buildings nowadays.

Look on an ele website e.g. asianelephant.net for exact details, but the herd from memory is as follows;

f. Sheba(matriarch, oldest f, mother of hybrid Motty)
f. Jangoli(ex Flamingo Park,older female but has bred 2 male calves)
f. Maya (lived in several zoos- doesn't cycle/breed)
f Thi Hi Way/Thi (ex ZSL, sent to Chester because of nervousness, has bred several times at Chester, three calves reared)
f. Birma(arrived from Mauberg Zoo France, last year- aged 22 years)
f. Sithami(Chang x Thi) born 31.12.97 at Chester.
f. Sundara (Chang x Sithami) born 2004- father/daughter mating!
m.name-Tunga? (Chang x Jangoli) born 2005/6 - her 2nd male calf
m.Raman (Upali x Thi) born 12/13th Nov.2006. Ist calf fathered by Upali.

m. Upali*. born at Zurich Zoo- has lived in Chester herd since very young and is now their breeding male, since Chang was sent to France. *Upali was originally owned by the Chipperfield organisation as a result of a deal and was sent to England as a very young animal (he was handreared) and then, fortunately for him, went to Chester.

(two older male calves born at Chester ( from Jangoli & Thi) called Assam & Pochin were sent to a Park in Belgium as 'batchelors')
 
A small update from Whipsnade...

Went today to see the two young arrivals.
I politely presented my self as a member of the Holy Spanish Inquisition so the keepers where reasonable OK with my questions!

Their first Great one horned asian rhinoceros for 17 years was born on the 31st of December 2006. She is doing really well and was playing outdoors with her mum all day.
They have two young females originally from Nepal, Benan and Beluki. Benan is the proud mother. Apparently she came into season in the week following the birth! However as she is a first time mum the keepers wanted to have "a long" time for the calf mother bound before breeding her again. So this will be done in 4-5 months time.
Beluki has bred 4 times , but not for the last 6 months. The keepers think she is pregnant, but the fecal hormonal tests are all negative. So experts from the Berlin Institute for Wildlife, will do an abdominal ultrasound scan on her next week
( for your info)!
Whipsnade has also a third female, a grand old dame, Roopa, aged 35.
She is still cycling but to frail to breed ( some leg problems). In her prime she had 8 calfs of whom only 4 male calves lived. One is the breeding male in Berlin and another has made Roopa a great grandmother in Portugal!
A third one is in the Check republic.
The male Jaffna, is a gentle sole on loan from Basel zoo, where he has already sired two offsprings. He was born at San Diego zoo and is of the Indian variety.
The rhinos from Nepal are apparently smaller, but the keeper where not sure if there where any other differences.
Anyone?
The male is due to go back to Basel at the end off this year. The keepers hope he will manage to sire at least one more calf before his departure.
So fingers crossed...

Yes and the asian elephants. As you all know they had their third calf in Whipsnade's history on 19th of January 2007.
A gorgeous girl who is doing really well.
They have 4 females in their 20s and all of them have bred with Emerett, the 15 year old male. However only 2 have had calves so far. One of them is due to give birth in January 2008 and there is a possibility that another one is pregnant...
Again the experts from Berlin will have a look at her next week.
Emerett has sired another calf at the Biblical zoo in Jerusalem, well thats AI for you...
Apparently one of the most difficult part in elephant AI is to keep the sperm alive.

Whipsnade got a 8 years old female, Karishma, from Twycross zoo in August 2006.
Today she seemed to be very keen on Emerett, but apparently till now she is not ready to go all the way.
Whipsnades oldest calf, Anneena sadly died last December. This was due to Herpes Simplex type I sepsis. She was hand-fed from birth and was apparently very critically ill few weeks old, but later thrived.
I understand herpes simplex infections are a common cause of captivity elephants calves mortality. One died at Port Lympney last year.
Now the protocol is to take the calves temperatures on weekly basis, as before severe Herpes infections the temperature will drop.

As with regards to the southern white rhinoceros, they are doing very well.
However due to the climate, San Diego does twice as well with similar size herds. Whipsnade is not able to keep mothers with young calves out-doors, with their males in winter times.

Got some nice photos of the young rhino- will post it soon.

Listen- please excuse my spelling...
and hope this is not all full of rubbish...

Best Regards

Feddi
 
thanks for the update feddi.

in regards to the indian rhinoceros - there are no recognised subspecies and the size difference you mentioned is the first i have heard of any differences in the indan and nepalese populations. indeed, historically the rhino was distributed continuously from eastern pakistan to western burma (through bhutan, bangladesh, india and nepal), essentially the entire terai.
i know of no idsolated populations before humans started imacting so negatively on the rhino.
 
Feddi- good to get a full update on the Whipsnade Rhinos & Elephants. I didn't know Jaffna was returning to Basle at the end of the year but I guess that's to be expected. Hopefully he may get both females pregnant before he leaves.

Re; differences between Nepal & Assam Indian rhinos. I too heard that the Nepal ones are supposed to be smaller/shorter in body size- however I took a photo at Whipsnade last year of the old female Roopa(from india) and one of the two nepalese females grazing on behind the other in the paddock- I can see no noticeable difference in them, except Roopa has a lot heavier belly, probably from repeatedly carrying calves. I didn't know she's had eight in total...

Re. the elephants- is it possible to routinely inoculate against the Herpes virus. Where does it come from?(no other elephants for miles around Whipsnade-except Woburn and they only have 3 Asians too) Perhaps if Aneena was initially handraised she didn't have full immunity from her mothers milk? When I saw them last year I thought that she was much smaller than she should have been. Its good though that they're their femaler are breeding again. Hopefully Aneena's mother will rear her new calf better.

The young female Karishma from Twycross was sent there as she is the daughter of their top-ranking female and was becoming 'pushy' in her home group(where there is no male) Do you know what is happening regarding plans for Twycross elephants generally?
 
Thanks for the responses.
Sorry, but I don't know anything about the Twycross elephants.

Well I'm sure there is no major differences between the two Asian great rhino populations- doesn't make any sense as you pointed rightly out Patrick.

With regards to the Herpes Simplex infections in the elephant calves- they could just easely catch it from the adult individuals in the herd. But I guess they could also catch it from their keepers. Anyway it's very common in the human population.

With regards to hand rearing of Annena, although not living for long, she still apparently became the oldest hand reared calf in the world.

Well i guess it is likely that lack of IgM immunoglopulins due to hand rearing would make a calf more vulnerable to all kind of infections.
Interestingly the calf who died at Port Lympney last year, was reared by it's mother, but died shortly after weaning when it's mother gave birth do a new calf.

Well I don't honestly know much about this...

Anyone?

Best Regards
 
:confused: Feddi- was Whipsnade's calf Aneena which died, handraised entirely? I never saw this mentioned or publicised. When I saw them she was in the group with her mother(?) whom I assumed was raising her + another female. However, she was VERY small compared to the male calf Euan, who is actually younger- so maybe she wasn't growing properly. Chester experienced similar problems with their first/only handraised calf and eventually it died around a similar age too(I think it swallowed a stone...) No problems with the mother-raised calves though as you said, Sittang, the calf who died at Port Lympne from the virus, was mother-raised too.

You're right in suggesting lack of immunity from handraising must increase the dangers for the calf from illness. Hopefully Kaylee is rearing the new calf herself.
 
Have just been reading an interesting scientific article on captive Indian rhinos, which suggests that breeding(=outcrossing) between animals from the Kaziranga and Chitwan(Nepal) populations may not be a very good thing..

It suggests that both these populations are inbred due to past 'genetic bottlenecks' which occurred early last century when numbers became incredibly low(Kaziranga, c.20 animals)- however both have survived and increased again without any apparent detrimental effects(like Cheetahs in Africa)
It says from the limited evidence they have shows that outcrossing between animals from the two populations shows a higher calf mortality. There are only about eight births(from about three animals) which come into this category, of which about half didn't survive. I wouldn't have thought this was sufficient to prove anything.

So I don't think the new calf at Whipsnade, which is 'outbred' in just this way, has too much to worry about- or does it?
 
Thanks for this info

Firstly the elephants- the keepers told me Annena was hand raised.
They also told me that they are able to give immunoglobulins when the calves are ill with Herpes simplex. However this is only successful in 50% of cases.
The new calf(Annaenas litle sister) is reared by it's mother.
She is also looked after by it's aunt and suckles her for comfort, although doesn't get any milk from the other female.
I remember about 5 years ago, the Copenhagen zoo had a hand reared calf. They organised to get elephant milk on regular basis from Thailand.
Bless the danes...
I don't know what happened to this calf.

Interesting info re. the Great onehorned rhino. I saw this article some time ago.
Well lets hope the new calf at Whipsnade will be among the lucky ones.
How many calves where in this study?

BW
 
Last edited:
Feddi.

Thanks for further info on Whipsnade elephants. As Kaylee is rearing the new calf I hope it won't have any problems which the handraised calves so often seem to have...

Re the Rhinos; I think there were only four situations studied where one animal of a pair was from Nepal and the other from (or originating from) India. Three females from these 'crossing' pairings produced five calves, one of these females had one calf and the other two had two each- of which one each DNS. A male fathered three offspring of which I think two died, giving a 50% survival ratio. But how much of this really has anything to do with the mixing of animals from the two populations, I don't know.

I think Rhinos from Nepal are quite rare in zoos- most of the original founder stock for Indian rhinos came from Kaziranga/Assam, hardly any from Nepal.
 
From what I have read about Indian rhinos in the past some of the larger ones are of the same weight as some of the smaller Asian elephants which seems quite interesting, even a normal sized Indian rhino is a big animal, an adult would have little to worry about from an adult tiger, not an animal to be messed with in the wild.
 
though i have never seen it, nor picks, is it true that the male grow quite impressive tusks, i have yet to see any pics, i have told they are much like a hippos?
 
Zooboy have a look at the black and white headshot pic of a Indian rhino that i have put up in the gallery it shows some tusks but i would say they are much smaller that a hippos.
 
MARK said:
some of the larger ones are of the same weight as some of the smaller Asian elephants
Click to expand...

definately mark!
the only wild indian rhino i have ever seem was absolutely massive. i was very supprised as i had never seen a live animal before (not even in a zoo) and expected something much smaller. i even said to my girlfriend "its the same size as the elephants" (that we were riding on at the time). of course it was much shorter but the actual size of its body was very comparable...

funny enough the rhino wasn't too threatened by the elephants but the elephants weren't to happy about getting so close to the rhino...

i have read that white rhino are larger and also that the two species (indian and white) share the title of worlds largest rhino species.

at least in the case of the rhino i saw in india - it was larger than any of the whites at werribee..

i should find that photo and post it...
 
i have been told, whites are greater in body mass, and the idians are taller, in theory, but everyone agian i talk to has a diff opinion, i have played with dora a few yrs ago, and he was very tall at the shoulder, and when next to dubbos male white, he was a lot bulkier
 
From everything I have read over the years the body mass on the white rhino is some what greater by a good margin, however i think the height to the shoulder of the bulls could be the same. I found a webpage last year about the sizes in captive Indian rhinos and also wild Indian rhino that went into great detail (Do you think i can find it now, NO ), It was I think info from Berlin zoos animals and others in German zoos, If any of you guys can find it again PLS let me know,Ta.
 
yeah will do.... its a great photo, taken on slide film. i had it blown up, framed it and had it on the wall in my study until a couple of months ago when my chair broke and i fell into the picture frame and somehow survived unkilled.. bloody hurt though!!
 
quick info

indian stats on Indian Rhino Information

Size

Weight:4,000-6,000 lb (1,800 - 2,700 kg)
Height: 5.75 - 6.5 ft (1.75 - 2.0 m) tall at shoulder
Length: 10- 12.5 ft (3.0-3.8m) length of head and body


white info on White Rhino Information

Size

Weight: 4,000-6,000 lb (1,800 - 2,700 kg)
Height: 5 - 6 ft (1.5 - 1.8 m) tall at shoulder
Length: 12.5-15 ft (3.8-5m) length of head and body
 
Zoo_Boy I have read others giving weights of up to 8000lbs for adult bull white rhinos, i guess it depends to whom is giving the information
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top