Smithsonian National Zoo Smithsonian National Zoo News 2014

Thats sad but considering the struggle hes had in the past couple months its not unexpected. I feel terrible for all of the keeper and veternary staff who have worked so hard to save him. He was very lucky to have them.
 
Rusty and Shama the red pandas have been moved to the Front Royal facility in advance of the breeding season. They were afraid that by leaving them in their exhibit at the zoo they might to breed successfully due to the increased traffic to the area caused by all visitors coming to meet Bao Bao.

Red Pandas move from National Zoo
 
There may be more lion cubs joining the pride in the next month as Shera and Luke bred a month after her sister.
 
Sounds like they will have a fantastic summer. Tiger cubs, lion cubs, a seal pup... Bao Bao! And thats just be little ones I remember and without the babies to come. Any of those 4 species could be a good draw as a baby. Combine them and look out.
 
Also if all goes to plan, the Calgary zoo's 3 female should arrive in spring and therefore debuting sometime in early summer.
 
Yep Calgary has said as soon as the weather is good and the transportation is ready the girls will go. I think its so cool the girls will be reuniting with their orphanage day friends. Some interesting studies could come from it.
 
TZFan said:
Yep Calgary has said as soon as the weather is good and the transportation is ready the girls will go. I think its so cool the girls will be reuniting with their orphanage day friends. Some interesting studies could come from it.
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That is fine by me.

Having said that, …. however I do hope in time there will be more elephant calves at NZP! :)
 
That would be nice but fortunately the only reproductively viable elephant, Maharani (Rani) is related to the zoos bull Kandula. Rani's mom, Kamala is Kandula's paternal grandmother which means Rani would be Kandula's Aunt. The only option for the zoo would be to import of acquire another bull or do another AI. However Ringling's CEC is looking to relocate 3 young bulls unrelated to the rest of the population, Gunther, P.T, and Irving. Maybe the national zoo will seek acquisition of one of them, most likely Gunther because he is at a breeding age.
 
There is rumor that Maharani might be coming to the zoo pregnant already by her former mate Spike. Breeding was observed according to someone on the Calgary forum a couple months after the premature stillborn birth of her last calf, late in 2012. I cant say shes pregnant definitely but there is a chance. She was with Spike until his departure and breeding could have taken place any time until he left.

But you are right Kandula is related to the cows. Al is an option. But so is bringing in an additional bull. The facility can manage multiple bulls.
 
I have been led to believe that Ringling is part of the AZA SSP for Asiatic elephant and / or at least cooperates with various zoos in breeding planning. I would assume knowing of the new elephant group being assembled at NZP they could spare a breeding age bull for you!

Kandula - as is the natural way - should relocate to another herd for breeding purposes. I think the options are rather limited there.

Does NZP have a bull elephant stalls / house within the elephant facility?
 
That'd be great if so! Hopefully all goes well seeing as how Rani and Spike don't have much luck with producing viable surviving off spring.

About the bull stalls, the main barn is capable of holding bulls but in addition to the new sand stall/public elephant house, a new addition was built specifically for bull elephants on the other side of the barn.
 
Rani and Spike have had 3 calves... none of which have lived. Keemaya was born in 2004 and was rejected by her first time mom and didnt live long. Malati was born in 2007 and she was I think rejected at first but later accepted by Rani. At 14 months she ended up with EEHV and died. That time it was just bad luck. If she hadnt contracted a almost always fatal disease she could have survived. The stillborn male delivered in 2012 was again just dumb bad luck. He died weeks before his birth. Ok maybe they are jinxed.

The good thing to note is that Rani can get pregnant fairly easily. And who knows they could teach Spike how to participate in semen collection and still breed the pair.
 
I thought I read that Kandula was supposed to mate with Bozie. Of course I am no expert on elephant body language, but while Bozie was in the other yard yesterday, Kandula had his nose in the air, showed excitement and made noises.
 
I read the same thing about the time Bozie moved to the zoo. Given her age (39) and the fact her only calf was born in 1990 (24 years ago), several others on here said the chance of that was pretty low that she and Kandula would breed successfully.

And it had also been mentioned on here that AI was preformed on Shanthi sometime last year... I think it was around the time Bozie arrived too. Shes only been successful with AI when Kandula was born 13 years ago and numerous attempts have been tried. Again its probably low chances of a calf.

Rani is the best bet and even then shes proven unsuccessful.

But its interesting to think that if all were successful the zoo in theory could have 3 young calves in a couple of years. Reality is they will be lucky if Rani has a calf.
 
TZFan said:
I read the same thing about the time Bozie moved to the zoo. Given her age (39) and the fact her only calf was born in 1990 (24 years ago), several others on here said the chance of that was pretty low that she and Kandula would breed successfully.

And it had also been mentioned on here that AI was preformed on Shanthi sometime last year... I think it was around the time Bozie arrived too. Shes only been successful with AI when Kandula was born 13 years ago and numerous attempts have been tried. Again its probably low chances of a calf.

Rani is the best bet and even then shes proven unsuccessful.

But its interesting to think that if all were successful the zoo in theory could have 3 young calves in a couple of years. Reality is they will be lucky if Rani has a calf.
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All this mumbo jumbo with AI is all well and good, but nothing beats a full-grown adult 20-25 year old bull.

In Washington / with NZP: Kandula is certainly not in the stakes that will allow him to mate a 39-year old cow. She / Bozie will simply not accept / see him as a prospective breeding partner. Also, size wise he is way to small to even manage …

A further issue is that Kandula is related to Shanthi so at best having him as a "breeding bull" may make for a tense relationship …

Some free advice here: get an adult bull that does the job straight away. If not, I predict a paucity of reproductive activity and a loss of valuable females to breed from.

BTW:
Which of all elephants is the current matriarch at NZP?
 
You bring up excellent points Kifaru.

AI is still in its infancy and a full grown bull who is breeding proven would be best. They probably should have worked (or worked harder) with Miami and Calgary to secure Spike. He has proven he can and wants to sire offspring. Has it worked? No but it could have.

Kandula should really go in favor of a breeding age bull. As soon as it was decided to bring in his relatives he lost all value there as a potential breeder. He would be better placed in a bachelor herd until maturity then placed where his mothers genetics can do the most good (dad Calvin is a well represented bull).

Im not sure who is matriarch. At some point in their updates on Bozies transition the zoo mentioned who was matriarch at the moment but I cannot recall. I feel like it might be Bozie but Im really unsure about that.
 
AI in rhinos is effective in 5% of all cases. I do not know the success rate in elephants, but given that elephant reproductive tracts are even more complex I dare not speculate on the success rate being any significantly different …

I would say we have had a fair bit of experience in Europe with breeding bulls since the EEP has been re-arranged. The program has not yet reached a sustainable level, but it sure is close onto that level (the target is: … 14-15 births per year!). This has only been achieved by the studbook / species coordinator sticking to their guns over the last 10-20 years and having few NO's now for an answer in case of recommended transfers.

Now, in US / Canadian zoos the breeding program is far more removed from any sustainability targets and needs to grow with the available bulls it has at its disposal. It is thus a bit of a hit-and-miss approach with bulls and at times some bulls being precocious do manage to sire offspring from as early an age as 10+-11 …, but it is far from the natural order of things and more based upon let your Russian Roulette luck do the draw. It has worked with some bulls in Europe too and if you look at the SSP some of the current breeding bulls like Johnson at Rockton and Doc at Syracuse are in the age class well before 25+, where Johnson has sired and Doc … for what I know has not. Several other bulls might be available as San Diego has a proven breeder in Ranchipur (with no chance of the resident females breeding) and Sabu (also proven) at Cincinnati (with another batch of cows that can now be considered post-reproductive and even a the female Jati at 27 questionable at best.

Just some thoughts of mine right!
 
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