Melbourne Zoo Melbournes New Elephants.....

P

patrick

Well-Known Member
well the thai girls seem to be settling in much better than their suntanned and shivering keepers. after initially ignoring the new elephants for close to ten minutes when she first saw them, kapah is so eager to meet the new girls that they are hoping to have a unrestrained introduction on friday. in the meantime she is spending much time hanging at the gate where they can hold trunks and vocalise with eachother.

bong su on the otherhand didn't seem to understand what all the fuss was about........

(for more pics check the photo gallery...)
 

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melbourne's elephants

hey pat
jst got back from taronga where i had the chance to chat with zookeeper lucy melo who was with the elephants in thailand and on cocos and oversaw gung's relocation to taronga on sunday.
she had been in contact with her melbourne counterparts, and said the same thing, that mek kepah was initially distant but is now besotted. im so glad for her, she probably didnt actually believe that there were 3 new elephants there!!!
 
Update 11/12/06

i am happy to report that the introductions between mek kapah and the new thai animals went off without a hitch. apparently they were introduced after just a couple of days and involved nothing more than a few trunk hugs and that was that. whilst kapah declined a dip in the pool with her younger companions today she was certainly content to sit back and watch. i am told that the group couldn't have gotten along better. certainly she must be a very docile elephant!!
 
update....

saw the elephants having a training session with their keepers. they are remarkably intellegent and well behaved. its especially sweet to see how well mek kapah gets along with the other girls. she would line up alongside the other girls so the keepers could take a photograph. she responds to the same thai commands as the other girls. the keepers got them to suck water in their trunks and take it over to the front of exhibit and spray it into the air.

kapah and the other girls also happily let their keepers ride them!

so glad that kpah's finally got a family. she is a very sweet elephant.
 
Did we ever hear if the younger Asian cow at Auckland zoo is a write off as far as breeding is concerned?
 
It's interesting to hear that Kapah has taken on so much of the new elephants training. Would you say that she is the dominant animal of the group?
 
i heard along the line she might not be the dominat animal, but not to sure

again the typical, hopw is the exhibit farring?

and what are the plans for breeding, any chance to chat to keepers?
 
Melbourne zoo has an adult bull ready for breeding, but taronga still has the young bull gung who's probably still a few years off impregnating any of the girls. How come the older females (i think 14) who are pretty much sexually mature off at taronga? Wouldn't it have made more sense to keep the younger females together, to breed with gung, and the older females at melbourne to breed with bong?
 
they made decisions based on age structure

in a wild herd, there are females of all diff ages, so they learn all the skills of rearing young from other members of herd. so if melb tokk all 3 13/14 yr olds, yes they could all breed, but the young ones would have little experience. it's all about herd dynamics, and setting the australsian program up for long term stability and viability.
 
If the young bull Gung is currently only six years old, Taronga may have to wait anything up to six more years before he is physically large enough to successfully mate the largest females(s)- who of course will keep growing too, though not as fast as he will... He may be fertile before that but unable to cover the largest female.

One option would be if Melbourne's bull proves successful as a breeder, to send the oldest Taronga female down to him, and return her to Taronga when pregnant. That way time( in years this is) could be saved before Taronga could have a calf, the younger females would get their '' "maternal experience" earlier(which is preferable as they're still learning) and IF there was a successful female calf, Gung gets another unrelated female in his herd.

A lot of IF's here but it could be a realistic option....
 
i see your point zoo boy, but what experience would a pair of teenage females, which have never given birth, or i assume been in a herd situation bring to the younger individuals?
 
I've just looked at Taronga's website for an age breakdown of their new elephant group. I see two of the new cows are already fourteen years old. They are in fact ready for breeding NOW, rather than in the years to come. If they don't send them to an older bull or successfully use AI on them, they could have problems breeding in the future if they are left unbred for too long now. I wonder if the authorities at Taronga are taking this into account.

This situation is not dissimilar to that previously at Whipsnade UK a few years back, who imported a 'baby' bull -presumably because it was easier to train him while he was still little- but they had older females and it was several years before he was physically large enough to breed with them. By then the cows were already in their twenties and more prone to difficult birthing- initially there were stillbirths and one female also died from birth complications.

And remember elephant females can actually breed at a much younger age than is popularly believed- at Chester the young female Sithami produced a calf(an accident, mated by her father) of her own when she was only six/seven years old- it hasn't done her any harm and she continues to grow normally- she shared the successful rearing of the calf with her own mother. Next time she has a calf she will already be an experienced mother herself.

At Taronga 'Gung' will probably be able to mate the two younger females first as he will grow faster than they and gradually equal/overtake them in size- allowing for successful mating.
 
the females at taronga are currently undergoing training with there keepers for the A.I procedure. (from June issue of zoonooz).

gung has been seen mounting hgirls whilst on exhibit, but it is beleived he wont be old enough yet to produce viable seamen.

as for kelvin, i am not sure if the eldest females at taronga had encountered in thailand natural breeding environment or seen other females breeding/calving/rearing, but alot of eles in captivity have not, but have been able to raise yopung susessfully, though yes it would more succesful for these female ahd seen ths, but that's why the younger eles are there, to learn frm the older girls, as not so they in years to come have to learn by them selves
 
Zoo_Boy said:
the females at taronga are currently undergoing training with there keepers for the A.I procedure. (from June issue of zoonooz).

gung has been seen mounting hgirls whilst on exhibit, but it is beleived he wont be old enough yet to produce viable seamen.
Click to expand...

That's good to hear, its probably the most practical solution for now.

I think young bulls probably become fertile around 8-10 and he'll probably be large enough to properly mate at least the younger females then.

whether or not females have seen other mothers rearing calves helps them rear their own is debatable. I think living in a good social group(i.e. calm, stress-free environment) is more important, also individual temperament plays its part. Chester's Thi, a very nervous Asian female, killed her first calf, attacked her second (which was removed) and then reared her third and fourth ones in model fashion.... On the other hand two young females at Twycross,- with no older cows or babies present,- gave birth for the very first time and both reared their calves perfectly.

I think also that a group with animals of different ages, such as both the OZ groups, is more natural and socially 'richer' than just same-aged animals.
 
heres a little update you'll all enjoy...

had a chat with a melbourne elephant keeper the other day. i wish all the melbourne keepers had the social skills the elephant guys have...

anyway. as i have mentioned before dokkoon and kapah are best of buds. i was interested to know if the zoo had somehow encouraged this, them being the older two, since from early after their arrival the elephants where often split into such pairings. i was happy to learn the keepers were just as supprised by the freindship as anyone else, from day one teh two elephants took a major shine to eachother and now are inseperable (metaphorically i'm sure)...

interestingly dokkoon seems to have lost a tusk though. the new elephants have always had quite prominant "tushes" compared to kapah, but either i have never noticed before or dokoon has definately lost one???

but heres the part you'll all be keen to hear. dokkoon (along with kapah for support of course) has been introduced to bong su, and he's definately quite keen on her. although they didn't actually mate he certainly tried a few times. the zoo is i hear quite committed to trying to breed the two naturally before they attempt any AI and they will be put together again at the right time later on in the year with fingers crossed. so heres good luck to that.

i was also told an aweful lot of long-term elephant idea's were being thrown around the zoo lately, though its all just talk at this very early stage. but the prospect of expanding TOTE further is not out of the question, nor is seeing a (predominantly bull) facility being constructed at werribee, to hold a larger population long-term.
 
Breeding hopes

patrick,

These signs are hopeful for an elephant calf at Melbourne. I look forward to Melbourne taking their plans for a bull enclosure further. In this way they can introduce the females to the bull and let nature take its course!

grantsmb,

I think you are right on the AI. Both females are 14 and as good and ready as they say for breeding. In Europe they would be prime candidates for breeding to a mature bull. AI is probably short-term the only option. Unless Melbourne is willing to let their bull Bong Su travel to Taronga for breeding.

However, I do think that even if the young male Gung is 12, he is yet to young for both older females (a mere puerile boy, as breeding bulls are normally aged 22-25). Older females seem to accept a younger bull for breeding much less than a bull their own age or older ......
 
jelle,

the "bull facility" i mentioned would be another enclosure to be built at melbournes sister zoo at werribee. basically it would give the zoo space to hold any bull calf's that are born at melbourne or within the zoo population. currently melbourne does have a seperate bull paddock and barn, so they have all the required ingeredients to breed elephants naturally. its more about creating space for more male elephants long-term. males that might be born into the population.

currently we have just three bulls in the region - all owned by the three zoos that have breedable cows. auckland zoo has talked in the past about taking in a bull calf if born, but since they bailed out on the whole elephant import, i'm not sure how likely it is that they will get their mits on any more elephants anytime soon 9they didn't want to spend the money on the facilities even though that had a potential breeding-age cow). the melbourne keeper mentioned also australia zoo and singapore in the consortium of elephant breeders working together (singapore is a nice choice to work with, its a world famous zoo, nearby and importing exporting zoo-bred elephants to eachother is a lot less controversial). so really a male calf born in australia could end up anywhere. the zoos seem quite flexible in a sense about how they can manage the regional herd..
 
jelle said:
Ta mere puerile boy, as breeding bulls are normally aged 22-25). Older females seem to accept a younger bull for breeding much less than a bull their own age or older ......
Click to expand...

I think you are right on that. The younger males don't seem able to command the respect that the older bulls do. In the wild, mature bulls come into the female herd temporarily and do the mating. The younger bulls leave and don't really get a look in. Also, their smaller body size mean young bulls have difficulty mating older cows- it probably results in aggression and frustration for the females. Of course, in captivity they can, and do father calves where older bulls aren't present.

There are some parallels here with the differing Blackback/Silverback leadership/dominance abilities in gorillas....
 
...and some more...

i wagged work yesterday. call it a hangover, i call it "mental exhaustion".

you'll never guess where i went....

fortunately, i was able to see one of the protected introductions between bong-su and the cows in the main barn. as i said earlier he has had unprotected contact with dokoon and kapah already but this session was one of about 5 a week designed to introduce him slowly to the two younger cows and the all of teh animals together as a group.

dookoon loves him. unlike the other elephants who choose not to have any physical contact with him at the bars. doookon and him "flirted" the whole time. both are very keen on eachother, lots of the usual trunk twisting, face rubbing and "backing up"...

the keeper was explaining all to the spectators. clearly kapah is teaching the other girls how to deal with bong su, which is great, since at age 9 kulab is apparently showing increased interest in him also (kulab, 9 years old you ask? yes, thats what he said, but i thought she was only a year older than num-oi, who was only 5 or 6 when she arrived. maybe shes' nearly 9 - i'm confused!).

in any event, after seeing all this first hand i'm now placing my wager on melbourne (like a few others here) to be the first to produce a baby elephant...

oh and on mek kapah. she does cycle still, but has ovairan cysts (which i believe can be extremely painful) and thus cannot ever become pregnant. the zoo is in a process of "chemically treating" (i'm guessing that means giving her hormones) to shut down her system permanantly to allow her to live more comfortably. its a shame she can't breed. she's still my favorite elephant by far..... big, hairy and gentle as hell....

..a bit like how glyn likes his men (that was for saying i should move to wallacia!!;))
 
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