Taronga Zoo The next elephant birth

  • Thread starter Thread starter jay
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Thank heavens Taronga's and Melbourne's first elephant births were successful, otherwise the righteous rightists would have had a field day. The success of those births have blunted their attack this time.
 
Steve Robinson said:
In that case, why would mother and calf likely die in the wild?
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quite correct even the Taronga representative mentioned this fact.

Yes a dead fetus may take a long time for it to be delivered.
Irma of Rotterdam zoo took until the next cow to deliver which was almost two years for her dead calf to be passed from her body.
 
Surely the foetus can be induced to avoid such a situation?

It's not exactly desirable, for instance, that a rotted foetus suddenly appear in the exhibit in front of visitors. If it's a safe and straightforward procedure, the foetus should be induced.
 
The calf might, in fact, never be delivered. I believe that a cow at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida, took over 12 months to resorb a dead, unborn calf. Elephants are indeed strange critters, biologically speaking.
 
Bad luck Taronga Park... :(

It seems the retained foetus becomes mummified and does not rot- that is why a female can retain it for so long in some instances, without compliations to herself.
 
Another boy, where are we going to keep these elephants - maybe DDZ should build some elephant facilities in the future ;)

This is very exciting stuff though
 
JaxElephant said:
That is a miracle, Luk Chai nows has a "little brother" to play around with :D
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Can I just add a word of caution. We don't know what condition this little guy is in and it is possibel that after such a traumatic start that he might not make it.

I hope he does make it through. I was so suprised by what I was reading.
 
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