Whatever you think of the elephant program at Pittsburgh, the emphasis of the zoo that the unability of the calf to gain weight and ultimately her death were related to problems due to "teething" is ridiculous and misleading. Mother-reared calves never have such problems and never die due to malnutrition while "teething". Same for the suggested "low birth weight" - which wasn`t low, but perfectly normal.
I have looked at the outcome of handraising elephant calves in zoos from day one after birth, and what happened to this baby is typical, especially to african elephant calves - failure to thrive due to the lack of maternal milk and the unsuitability of the the articifical milk.
Hand raised elephant calves of both species very rarely survive, that`s a sad fact.
Which makes it incredibly strange that the Pittsburgh zoo didn`t put more time and effort into getting Seeni to care for her calf and moved her to the zoo that soon. That should have been number one priority. Even if Seeni had never nursed her, just being around the calf, observing and smelling her would have been very beneficial for her to gain experience with newborns and might have enabled her to at least raise her next calf even if this one was beyond help. I wonder what reasons played into the decision to move the calf to the zoo so fast. Did they want to have the calf at the zoo so that they could put her on display for the visitors? Did the zoo staff want the opportunity to hand raise the baby for themselves instead of letting their collegues have the honor? Did they really thought that the baby had a good chance of surviving on milk replacer alone?! Do they now really believe the calf died due to "teething problems" combined with a low birth weight?
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