AmbikaFan
Well-Known Member
Thank you for the welcome! I don't know nearly as much as the rest of you about some of the lesser-known species at the zoo, but I do have good elephant information from zoos all over the country.
All of the breeding zoos publish pregnancy news as early as six months in, as well as other news to keep members feeling involved. I'm completely vexed and frustrated by the zoo's lack of forthcomingness on a number of issues regarding elephants. i can only guess that they are unwilling to give activists fodder for their mill, but by doing so, they're losing a valuable opportunity to make people feel connected to these animals, something we need if they are to be saved from extinction. I'm sure youve all seen how infrequently there are any updates to the webpage, and there are only 4-5 for the entire last two years. I think they've mishandled the Kandula issue in a big way. Back in 2004 when they were trying to raise money to build Elephant Trails, they cited the necessity to have a stronger facility so they could keep Kandula and a larger habitat to enable a breeding herd to be established. Longtime donors feel betrayed to find that Kandula is leaving and that the "multi-generational breeding herd" is now highly skewed toward retirement age. Once Elephant Trails was completed, NZP was actively looking for a group of females to come here; from what I know, they weren't ordered by AZP to accept the Calgary group, although it may have been the price to pay for that rare breeding-age female we got in Maharani. But they made a tactical error in accepting the Calgary herd knowing full well that Kandula's grandmother Kamala is Maharani's mother, making breeding between Maharani and Kandula impossible. Accepting this offer meant Kandula would have to leave, so the zoo simply kept quiet about the relationship. Newspapers in OKC and all over the country carried the story of Kandula's move, saying that he couldn't be bred here because he was closely related to the only breeding-age female--but no one here was ever notified about that, not even in Tony Barthel's video package about the move. It's like a big secret, because they knew that Elephant Trails donors would be shocked that they knowingly accepted a situation that would force Kandula's departure. This makes it much harder to swallow now. Theyve known about OKC and Indy coming here for 6-9 months if not longer, so why not share this news? Especially for the nation's publicly-funded zoo for the whole nation, this is somewhat shocking to me.
It's also disturbing to me that nothing has ever been said about Swarna. Others zoos have faced TB--if that's what the worry was--and used the opportunity to share that it's treatable, how it's treated, that it can really only be spread indoors, etc. Activists are never more suspicious than when information is withheld, especially since medical records are a matter of public record, so handling it this way has only made things worse. Of course, most of us are genuinely concerned about Swarna's health and wonder what could have befallen her to necessitate the closure of the Elephant House for months. If NZP involved us the way other zoos do, this concern would probably even manifest itself in additional donations. They're doing SO much SO well--why not publicize it?
None of the info I shared above was gossip; it all came--and was confirmed by--keepers at several other zoos, who knew about Kandula and Indy a long time ago. In fact, all of these people were surprised that it wasn't common knowledge in DC.
Regarding Rex, I think the hope is that he'll teach Kandula behaviorally how to be an adult bull. However, NZP has been getting viable semen samples from him for some time, so this part won't be entirely new!
All of the breeding zoos publish pregnancy news as early as six months in, as well as other news to keep members feeling involved. I'm completely vexed and frustrated by the zoo's lack of forthcomingness on a number of issues regarding elephants. i can only guess that they are unwilling to give activists fodder for their mill, but by doing so, they're losing a valuable opportunity to make people feel connected to these animals, something we need if they are to be saved from extinction. I'm sure youve all seen how infrequently there are any updates to the webpage, and there are only 4-5 for the entire last two years. I think they've mishandled the Kandula issue in a big way. Back in 2004 when they were trying to raise money to build Elephant Trails, they cited the necessity to have a stronger facility so they could keep Kandula and a larger habitat to enable a breeding herd to be established. Longtime donors feel betrayed to find that Kandula is leaving and that the "multi-generational breeding herd" is now highly skewed toward retirement age. Once Elephant Trails was completed, NZP was actively looking for a group of females to come here; from what I know, they weren't ordered by AZP to accept the Calgary group, although it may have been the price to pay for that rare breeding-age female we got in Maharani. But they made a tactical error in accepting the Calgary herd knowing full well that Kandula's grandmother Kamala is Maharani's mother, making breeding between Maharani and Kandula impossible. Accepting this offer meant Kandula would have to leave, so the zoo simply kept quiet about the relationship. Newspapers in OKC and all over the country carried the story of Kandula's move, saying that he couldn't be bred here because he was closely related to the only breeding-age female--but no one here was ever notified about that, not even in Tony Barthel's video package about the move. It's like a big secret, because they knew that Elephant Trails donors would be shocked that they knowingly accepted a situation that would force Kandula's departure. This makes it much harder to swallow now. Theyve known about OKC and Indy coming here for 6-9 months if not longer, so why not share this news? Especially for the nation's publicly-funded zoo for the whole nation, this is somewhat shocking to me.
It's also disturbing to me that nothing has ever been said about Swarna. Others zoos have faced TB--if that's what the worry was--and used the opportunity to share that it's treatable, how it's treated, that it can really only be spread indoors, etc. Activists are never more suspicious than when information is withheld, especially since medical records are a matter of public record, so handling it this way has only made things worse. Of course, most of us are genuinely concerned about Swarna's health and wonder what could have befallen her to necessitate the closure of the Elephant House for months. If NZP involved us the way other zoos do, this concern would probably even manifest itself in additional donations. They're doing SO much SO well--why not publicize it?
None of the info I shared above was gossip; it all came--and was confirmed by--keepers at several other zoos, who knew about Kandula and Indy a long time ago. In fact, all of these people were surprised that it wasn't common knowledge in DC.
Regarding Rex, I think the hope is that he'll teach Kandula behaviorally how to be an adult bull. However, NZP has been getting viable semen samples from him for some time, so this part won't be entirely new!
