Our newest addition to our zoo has died. The baby elephant was rejected by its mother and didn’t make it. I can’t believe how sad this is making me.
That is SO SAD! It’s hard to believe in this day and age of medical science and everything, that they couldn’t keep her alive. The formula they gave her just wasn’t good enough 
That is just so so so so sad…
That’s terrible! We lost a baby elephant in our zoo a year or two ago, also. So sad.
I wonder why they couldn’t express the mother’s milk. Poor thing,
How sad.
WhyNot:
They don’t make milking stools high enough.
I wondered about that, too, and I imagine that the mother wasn’t tolerating being milked, and it would be too hard on her to tranquilize her every day or so.
We were so looking forward to seeing the baby in the zoo.
I was really hoping she was going to pull through. Poor little thing.
I feel so bad for laughing but the mental picture is just too much.
What a shame! Our baby elephant, Ganesh, was born a few years back and he was cute as a button. He’s a big boy now.
Now we’ve got Suci, our baby black rhino. After she was born, they installed a Rhino cam and you could log in and see what she was up to. It’s amazing how cute a snub nosed rhino can be. If you want to visit it, you can go to cincinnatizoo.org
We’ve been very lucky here in Cincinnati with our birthrate. We’ve been dubbed the “sexiest zoo in America” for our record captive reproduction and survival rates.
Of course, that doesn’t help your little pachyderm much. So sorry.
So I’m watching the news tonight, and they mentioned how the death of this baby elephant is being taken by “animal rights” groups as indications that animals should not be in zoos, et freakin’ cetera. I just about said a very bad word at the tv at that. Do these animal rights activists have any information about conservation programs and what zoos actually do AT ALL? Do they not know that the people who work the most to help animals are the ones working at zoos? Do they understand that part of zoo mandates is to help wild animals? Or do they just have a knee-jerk reaction to seeing cute, fuzzy critters behind bars?
Featherlou, I’m from the same city as you (don’t know if you mentioned it before, so I won’t out you…)
I heard the news on the radio this morning. I was really pulling for the little one. I used to be fairly anti-zoo, having been raised by a mother with the same opinion. But, when I started keeping fish and going to aquariums, I learned about the conservation efforts and such. I extrapolated my knowledge to zoos and know I’m more tolerant. I don’t think the reaction is knee jerk, necessarily, just uninformed. I think (speaking formerly, and only on my knowledge) the reaction is saddness that such a place is even required. It seems a bit silly to me to object to zoos now, we’ve gone too far in decimating populations and we need to give back.
That being said, poor little one. I took a minute to regroup after I heard that, and I’m not sure why I cared so much?
- Rebekkah
I tell you why we find ourselves saddened at this news-elephants are very similar to us; the babies are very cute, they were carried for 12 mths(gestation) so we anticipated the joyous arrival with hope and now we are dissappointed. Elephants are smart and seem so emotionally intelligent/similar to us–they can paint and form friendships with each other that withstand decades (decades!) of separations–MUCH LIKE US. The population in the wild is in danger of being wiped out thanks to poachers and civilation (sic) (my spelling is “phhht” right now). We recognize that more than ever each “captive” birth is precious in more ways than one.
Some of the “anti-zoo” nuts are correct to protest the facilities that some elephants withstand in some zoos. NPR had a story earlier this week or last week about this (Nov 29-Dec 7) and mentioned that elephants need more space to move in, less concrete to stand upon, and diets with more varitey. Some zoos do not fullfill the now better understood/realized basic needs of the animals they hope to guard and shephard into this new century. But what needs to be done is to use $$ and time to improve all the zoos so they do fullfill those basic critter well-being requirements and our expectations of seeing the critters when we come to view them.
I love elephants. and penguins.
The Detroit Zoo tried to do something very humane and without outside urging.
They decided to ‘retire’ them to the
Elephant Sanctuary * down in Tennessee. It made me swell with pride about my zoo and for the elephants.
Elephants in the wild walk more than 30 miles a day. Realizing that their space at the zoo was just not big enough ( and bigger than alot of zoos) the Detroit Zoo decided to send them to ES.
The American Zoological Assoc. decided to intervene for reasons I am not totally clear on and not only stopped the retirement of the pair, but seperated them.
They are now in two seperate zoos and even Jane Goodall has critizied the AZA.
Bastards.
If I had the time I would find the links.
*Read the bios of the elephants. I command you.
If I may speak as an interested, semi animal activist, it’s not the conservation effort we protest, we are more concerned about how they get their animals…there are a number of contraversies about purchasing black market animals (therefore creating a “need”) and also of zoos selling to “canned hunt” facilities when they have too many of one animal and can’t find another zoo which would like them.
My husband and I are members of our local zoo; we’ve gone to a couple of presentations and talked with the keepers, docents, etc., and I have been very impressed with the level of concern that everyone at the zoo has for animals (wild and in captivity). I shouldn’t tar all animal activists with the same brush, but by the same token, I don’t think animal activists should just write off zoos and their employees and programmes as evil. In a perfect world, there would be no zoos because there would be no need for zoos. I would gladly never look at another animal in captivity if it meant that the wild populations were healthy and robust.
What a shame. I’m so sorry.
Why do elephants reject their young? Does it happen a lot? Any rhyme or reason to it?
Cool link, Shirley. I don’t want to come across as rantin’ and ravin’ here; if it would be better for the elephants we have at the zoo here to be taken to a sanctuary like the one in Tennessee, I would support that whole-heartedly.
I’m so sorry. How very sad.
My sister worked for the Oakland Zoo a couple years ago. They lost their baby elephant while she was there, and it was AWFUL. If I recall, some of the handlers went to grief counseling, and she said that basically everyone at the zoo cried about it. This is secondhand info from memory, but if I recall, the mother had lost at least one other baby, basically due to poor parenting skills. It seems that elephants learn parenting skills by watching other elephants and the mama had been raised in captivity. Makes me tear up just writing about it…sniffle.