I would not call that article a "formal announcement" in my opinion, I was referring to an actual post of some kind on their social media blatantly saying the two cows were pregnant (which never occurred). But that is just a personal view.
Something seems to be going on with elephants dying mere months after arriving at TES. First it happened with Nicole, then Jana, and now Donna, and Tonka died before he moved there.
The deaths of the three individuals who died while at the The Elephant Sanctuary form a weird pattern, although it is almost certainly coincidental. There is no possible way Tonka's death is related, if there is any connection between the other deaths at all.
Oakland's official statement was that there were no other facilities able to take him and no bulls they could transfer in. I would think that with Osh having completly unrepresented genes in the US that the SSP would've preferred to keep him in a facility where they could utilize him for AI. It appears that no bachelor facilities could take on a fully grown bull at the time, and that other facilities with geriatric cows and the like were simply not realistic options. Cleveland, Jacksonville, etc, while having the space, are across the country from Oakland and aren't very plausible moves for a mature african bull.
The birmingham zoo does have bulwalgi and he's fully grown. But I'm not too sure if they can hold much more elephant than the bull trio they currently have. The same goes for elephant odyssey at san diego and the caldwell zoo in tyler tx as they both currently have a geriatric cow and two young bulls. And I'm not so sure if both latter facilites can hold more than 3 elephant max either.
My apologies for unintentionally insulting his breeding status haha. I do think y'all have a point that if he were moved to a facility that had a herd of younger cows ripe for breeding, and older experienced males to show him the ropes of mating and overall bullhood. I'm sure things would have turned out much better if howletts chose that path. But to be fair, I think a lot of the North American zoos with elephants had a tiny amount of elder cows with little to no real experience with breeding and family herds by the time osh came to oakland. And much of the enclosures for them were incredibly outdated. But fast forward to the present decade and now very little facilities still strictly hold geriatric cows, and we have a lot more elephant habitats that at least have the ability to manage a multigenerational herd of cows and calves, a breeding bull and/or a bachelor herd of young bulls.
Looks like Simunye will be the first one to give birth several months away. I'm glad callee is a tip top breeder, but I'm still hopeful ajani has finally impregnated one of the sedgwick girls. But I know they said they will confirm the dad's after all the calves are born.
The facts of the matter: Bull Osh arrived at Oakland Zoo as a sub-adult/juvenile 10-year old into a herd of "experienced" cows (allthough no functional matriarchal herd social structure). In the wilds a mature sexually dominant bull is between the 28-35 age classes as adult sexually mature cows will not accept anything less.
That is mainly why facilities such as jacksonville birmingham san diego providence cheyenne mountain, milwaukee, caldwell, san diego (elephant odyssey), and baltimore would have all been better places for him to be transferred to than the sanctuary in my opinion. He could have had some ai sessions at these places.
