Saint Louis Zoo Saint Louis Zoo news 2008-2012

The elephant Rani is due this month! Hopefully she will deliver this week so I can see the calf when I visit for the first time :D
 
Ellie the Asian Elephant is also pregnant and is due this summer as well as her oldest daughter Rani. I wish the Jacksonville zoo had the same success with their elephants. Here is the article:
2 bundles of joy set for Zoo
The St. Louis Zoo's family of Asian elephants had another happy announcement Monday with word that Ellie is pregnant with her third.

That makes two expectant elephants at the River's Edge habitat. Rani's pregnancy was announced in January. Ellie and Rani are scheduled to deliver in the summer of 2011.

In both cases, the father is Raja, the bull whose much-heralded birth in 1992 was the first of an elephant at the zoo. Ellie also happens to be Rani's mother, and Raja already has fathered one youngster by each of them.

If the family tree gets dizzyingly complicated, it's a healthy and growing one by elephant standards, said Martha Fischer, the zoo's curator of mammals. The zoo has eight elephants, including Raja, the lone adult male.

"One of our goals has always been to create a strong family system, with strong ties within the herd," Fischer said. "We are well on our way."

In the wild, she said, female elephants and their young stay together and the bulls are off by themselves, showing up only when the females are in heat. The bulls have to fight among themselves for the honor of fatherhood.

"Raja is lucky. He doesn't have competition," she said.

Fischer said the zoo staff doesn't let Raja share living quarters with the female elephants except when one of them is in heat and considered physically fit for pregnancy. She said the staff allowed Raja around Ellie in late October, and recently confirmed the pregnancy with a rectal sonogram.

"We have a great team of people at the zoo," Fischer said politely.

Everything about elephant reproduction is slow by most mammalian standards. Female elephants go into heat only four times each year. A full-term pregnancy takes about 22 months. A newborn elephant usually weighs about 300 pounds.

Ellie, who is 38, had Rani 14 years ago when she was in the zoo in Jacksonville, Fla. The father was an elephant from Buffalo, N.Y. Ellie and Rani came to St. Louis in 2001.

Ellie and Raja are the parents of Maliha, born here in 2007. Rani's firstborn, also fathered by Raja, is Jade, who turned 3 in February.

The zoo doesn't allow inbreeding among the herd, Fischer said. Elephants in the wild rarely allow it among themselves, she said.

Rani is expecting in mid-summer 2011, and Ellie in late summer 2011. Not wanting to wait, the zoo staff will conduct blood tests soon on Ellie and Rani to determine the sex of their future arrivals.
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JaxElephant said:
Ellie the Asian Elephant is also pregnant and is due this summer as well as her oldest daughter Rani. I wish the Jacksonville zoo had the same success with their elephants. Here is the article:
2 bundles of joy set for Zoo
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Not to be the bringer of back news, but it was actually determined quite awhile ago that Ellie experienced a miscarriage around the 9 month mark
 
And I dont know if you realize that Ellie and Rani were once Jacksonville elephants. Rani is the only elephant ever born at the Jacksonville Zoo.
 
Rani just gave birth and its a girl!
Rani's Baby :: Saint Louis Zoo
The Saint Louis Zoo is proud to announce the birth of an Asian elephant on Friday, June 24, 2011. Rani, the Zoo's 15-year-old Asian Elephant, gave birth at 1:13 p.m.

"Mother and baby are bonding very well," says Curator of Mammals Martha Fischer. "The baby appears healthy and is already walking around." The elephant care staff has not yet confirmed the weight or height, because Rani is being very protective of her newborn.

Mother and baby are not yet on public display, and a debut date has not been set.

"Rani was protective of her baby from the start," says Fischer. "She did a great job of carrying and giving birth to a beautiful baby."

This is Rani's second baby and the third for Raja, the baby's father. Raja was the first elephant ever born at the Saint Louis Zoo. Now, at age 18, he has his own family, with daughter Maliha, born on August 2, 2006, and Rani's first daughter, Jade, born February 25, 2007.

"The River's Edge staff has been busy preparing for this particular baby for the past two years, says Fischer. "It's so rewarding to have made it to this day.

"We are all just overjoyed to have the baby with us," she adds. "We have welcomed a new member in our family."

For the past two months, the Zoo staff was on a 24-hour pregnancy watch. They also monitored her progress with an ultrasound exam and tracked her progesterone every day. When Rani's progesterone dropped two days ago, the Zoo staff knew she would deliver within 1-13 days.

The Zoo will announce a "Name the Baby Elephant" poll at a later date.
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I have a feeling there must be something wrong with the elephant calf. Why would they wait over two months to put such an anticipated arrival on exhibit? I'm concerned, I hope it isn't the herpevirus.
 
It may be as simple as the keepers having the confidence that they can get Rani and her new calf back off exhibit without problems, after having them on display.
 
I believe Maliha went on exhibit almost immediately, Jade did not because of rejection issues.... But I'm a bit worried as of now.
 
In most european zoos, the calves go "on exhibit" the day after they`ve been born. Keeping an elephant calf away from the public for full 3 months sounds very strange.

Looking at the picture in the article above, I`m not so sure there is no problem - Kenzi looks very thin and much too bony for a healthy 3-months-old. The article says she weights now 380 pounds (birth weight 300 pounds), which means she only gained 80 pounds in 3 months. An elephant calf should gain 2-3 pounds a day and not just barely 1 a day.
 
Yassa said:
Looking at the picture in the article above, I`m not so sure there is no problem - Kenzi looks very thin and much too bony for a healthy 3-months-old. The article says she weights now 380 pounds (birth weight 300 pounds), which means she only gained 80 pounds in 3 months. An elephant calf should gain 2-3 pounds a day and not just barely 1 a day.
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I was just about to post the same thing..EEHV1?
 
Yassa said:
In most european zoos, the calves go "on exhibit" the day after they`ve been born. Keeping an elephant calf away from the public for full 3 months sounds very strange.

Looking at the picture in the article above, I`m not so sure there is no problem - Kenzi looks very thin and much too bony for a healthy 3-months-old. The article says she weights now 380 pounds (birth weight 300 pounds), which means she only gained 80 pounds in 3 months. An elephant calf should gain 2-3 pounds a day and not just barely 1 a day.
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Now that you mention it she does look very thin. Hopefully nothing is seriously wrong...
 
In a recent youtube video (August 11th) it showed Ellie in with the bull elephant Raja. Hopefully we'll have another calf in June, 2013. ( I know this is for breeding because he is never put in with Rani or Ellie unless breeding is the motivation.
 
Some new videos were posted on Youtube:



She does look very thin. In a previous video from August Kenzi looks skinny but with more energy than the recent videos...

video from August:
 
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During our visit to the St Louis Zoo on saturday we were informed by staff that there were never any health issues with Kenzi and that it was simply standard procedure by the zoo in regards to her going on public display.She certainly looked good and was full of energy just as a calf should be.She now weighs over 400 lbs.

Team Tapir
 
Here's something rather amusing from the zoo's Facebook page:

The Saint Louis Zoo has challenged the Fort Worth Zoo and The Dallas Zoo to a World Series bet! If, heaven forbid, the Rangers win, Dr. Jeffrey Bonner, the Dana Brown President and CEO of the Saint Louis Zoo, will shovel 1,000 pounds of animal dung while wearing a Texas Rangers jersey. However, if the Cardinals win, the chief executives of the Fort Worth and Dallas zoos must each shovel 500 pounds of dung while wearing St. Louis Cardinals jerseys. Let's hear it for the RED BIRDS
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