First Belgium baby elephant expected » Antwerp Zoo

First Belgium baby elephant expected
22-12-2008

The zoo announced: WE ARE PREGNANT!

The zoo started a big media campain to give attention to the pending birth of Khaing Pyo Pyo to the first ever Belgium baby elephant.

There are big projections of the echo's of the baby (600 m2) in different cities in Belgium (Brussels, Antwerp, Gent and Namur) and the birth can be seen live via internet (notifications sent via SMS and e-mail).

....... the ongoing farewell travels of Alex (Indra in Amersfoort is expecting as well and Donna will have to beat this because of logistics ...)

22-12-2008

And this is the site: ZOO Antwerpen verwacht een baby-olifantje

07-05-2009

For the record, still nothing happend in Antwerp. The mediahype is there, and there is already a huge queue made for the exhibit. But like the most people where thinking (it would be strange if it was already born, because nobody would have seen them "mated" arround that time. It was possible, but not likley) it is a baby that probably will be born this month.

07-05-2009

Congrats to Khaing Phyo Phyo.

17-05-2009

About an hour ago the little one was born:
For a live feed, check: ZOO Antwerpen verwacht een baby-olifantje

17-05-2009

wow, thanks for telling. I was getting quite worried as the baby was very overdue. ( Since Alexander left on april 17th 2007)

17-05-2009

It's a girl!!!

No, they baby wasn't overdue but Antwerp started their campaign at the very first possible time the baby could have been delivered (even before Tonya was born - for me there were allways logistical questions on that one).

For the ones having trouble with getting access to the camera, there are stills of the webcam to be found at: 'h'echte (dieren)vrienden van de Zoo :: View topic - Het grote baby olifant K topic 2009

18-05-2009

Thanks for the info,

Congrats to Antwerp zoo! wonder what they'll call the baby? Another burmese name?

18-05-2009

@ Dragon: you have the dates wrong, Alex left Rotterdam in April 2007 and stayed in Antwerp from April til October 2007 (and mated Phyo Phyo in May and August 2007). The baby was right in time after a 21,5 months pregnancy.

18-05-2009

oh yes! sorry my bad!
Knew something wasn't quite right there! Thanks.

18-05-2009

Why does the smaller of the adults keep kicking the calf?! Which one was the mother? I hope this baby's ok, she seems to have had a very rough start!

18-05-2009

The smaller one is the 4 year old sister May Tagu, I think she was overexited and inexperience rather then really agressive. She knocked the calf serveral times over before the mother started to push her out of the way and told her not to do that in "elephant", I guess! I watched the baby live on cam later in the morning and by then, May Tagu had calmed down and learned her lession, she was very careful with the calf, who was good on her feet and walking around. All is well, elephant calves aren`t as fragile as they look, when the calf tried to get up she fell serveral times and it looked pretty bad too, but that is completely normal.

18-05-2009

Concratulations to the zoo director and the elephant mother.

Seriously: do I notice well that elephant calves are more often female, when the mother is kept with several older cows? Berlin zoo also has a second daugther in a row. It could make sense from ecological point of view.

18-05-2009

good question there,

but I think most of the time in the animal kingdom sex is determined by the father. But this might contradict the theory within elephants as most AI calves are male. Male sperm are usally very fast and energetic but die off very fast. Their speed often gets them there first. But female sperm is slower although has a much longer lifespan.
Or could it be that the way zoos reserve frozen elephant sperm is so good that they reserve an equal amount of both female and male sperm???

18-05-2009

We had the same discussion on Dutch fora several months ago when Tonya was born in Rotterdam (photo's of Tonya being kicked ...). Trong Nhi also acted agressively towards her the first day and was disciplined by the other adult cows. Now she's a doting sister.

This was the first birth May Tagu experienced and it was her mother now giving attention to something she didn't know. No doubt that the same will happen here.