Chester Zoo Elephant Birth

New baby @ Chester Zoo

Saw the new baby elephant at Chester Zoo yesterday. We were there at the end of the day and all the elephants came out to eat, including the newborn. Amazing! Here's a photo.... (sorry about the red-eye)

Had to reduce the picture a lot in size / resolution to come in under the attachment file size limit....

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great news indeed - and SMR - when I left the zoo on saturday you said you were going home - I didn't know you'd taken up that spare bunk in the Ellie house to be there for the birth :D

nice shot too

may just have to pop in before the members lecture on saturday now :)
 
karoocheetah said:
...when I left the zoo on saturday you said you were going home - I didn't know you'd taken up that spare bunk in the Ellie house to be there for the birth
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I was mistakenly credited as "visitor" today, when "resident" is probably more appropriate!

Fingers crossed that the weather stays mild, if it does the herd will be out on the paddock later in the week and the photo ops will be much improved. It might distract Nayan for a while too.
 
@Maguari: Oh, lol, sorry, I didn't see your post, I was kind of in a rush ;)
 
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I am pleased to see Thi has successfully given birth to her cow calf. Since she left London nineteen years ago she has given birth to seven calves, three of which are alive today, so I therefore estimate she has been pregnant fourteen years out of the nineteen she has resided at Chester, When she was pregnant with Ramon I was told by one of the keepers that this would be her last calf, however she has again had another calf and unfortunately is now in an arthritic condition, I have heard it stated that Thi has been used as a breeding machine, is this natural for an elephant in the wild to have this number of babies?, I would be interested to hear.
 
TARZAN said:
I have heard it stated that Thi has been used as a breeding machine, is this natural for an elephant in the wild to have this number of babies?, I would be interested to hear.
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I would estimate that Thi has had roughly the same number of calves as a wild female might do in her lifetime, but in her case, during a much shorter timespan due to a number of factors;

1. time spent at ZSL as a mature female without a male/breeding

2. death of several calves resulting in more frequent pregnancies.

3. shorter birth interval in captive elephants generally(?)

However I do not know if her arthritis is connected to this high level of breeding activity or from a quite different cause.

Its likely that the females of Thi's 'subgroup' (Thi, Sithami, Sundara, and the new calf) will form the future focus of elephant breeding at Chester as the only other breeder is Jangoli- who so far has only produced males and so not formed a subgroup of her own.
 
If I remember rightly Thi is wild caught and her arthritis is due to the chains used around her legs whilst in the wild. I have a feeling somewhere in the back of my mind that she used to be used at a logging company moving logs and trees around.
 
LeeMac13 said:
If I remember rightly Thi is wild caught and her arthritis is due to the chains used around her legs whilst in the wild. I have a feeling somewhere in the back of my mind that she used to be used at a logging company moving logs and trees around.
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She certainly came from a logging camp originally (Burma?) but whether she was wild caught/born there/already working there before she left I don't know. I believe the two females at Twycross(Tonzi & Mimbu) came from the same, or another similar, source though they were only halfgrown youngsters on arrival. They had 'star' brands on their rumps from their previous home too- these may have faded now.
 
Pertinax said:
I believe the two females at Twycross(Tonzi & Mimbu) came from the same, or another similar, source though they were only halfgrown youngsters on arrival. They had 'star' brands on their rumps from their previous home too- these may have faded now.
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At least one of these two still has the brand clearly visible - there are signs up in the house explaining the situation. One family had disregarded the signs and was engaged in rampant speculation as to the origin of the star when I was last in the house.
 
Over the last few months, I've developed an interest in Asian elephant subspecies, and I was wondering if anybody knows any subspecies in the Chester group. I assume the original wildcaught females are all of a pure subspecies, and wondered whether it passed down to make any captive-bred elephants a pure subspecies. If not, does anybody think that this is something zoos may work towards in the future, like they have with giraffes?

Zootierliste shows Chester down for 'no subspecific status' and 'Sri Lankan' - can anybody add names to the subspecies? I assume:

Thi - Sri Lankan
Maya - Sri Lankan
Jangoli - Sri Lankan
Sheba - Sri Lankan

and then the rest sub-specific hybrid (Sithami, Sundara, Nayan, Upali and new baby).

I could be wrong, but would be interesting to know for sure :)
 
Sheba is Sri Lankan. I've never heard anything definite either way for the others.
 
Maguari said:
Sheba is Sri Lankan. I've never heard anything definite either way for the others.
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Thanks Maguari - if I have it right then the ones I listed as Sri Lankan were wild caught - so if they are from the wild originally I assume them to be a pure subspecies, if not Sri Lankan.

The photo by Camparso on this page: ZootierlisteHomepage certainly has a very similar look to some of Chester's eles, but it doesn't list Chester as a holder of Sumatran (and I don't know how to tell the difference between subspecies in Asian eles, so might just be a coincidence)
 
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