elephant and rhino births at whipsnade » Whipsnade Zoo

elephant and rhino births at whipsnade
10-02-2007

whipsnade wild animal park, one of my favourite zoos in the world, and just outside of london has announced the birth of a baby asian rhino, the first in 17 years and i imagine the first to the new bull on loan, and A BABY ELEPHANT.
this is the third baby elpehant to be born at whispsnade, and second female, and follows the recent tragic death of 3 year old aneena. the cause of her death is yet to be established, but this is very happy news.
scientists at ZSL studying the captive asian elephants devloped a technique to monitor the reproductive stauts of elephants through hormones in dung. there is great scope for this non-invasive technique to be applied to the management of wild pachyderm populations.

10-02-2007

for great photos, just google asian elpehants and whipsnade.
for the indian rhino, the first birth (and its a girl) for mother Beehan represents a new bloodline for the EEP.

10-02-2007

Great news, wow

10-02-2007

Had a look at the pics of the baby Indian rhino and Asian elephant at Whipsnade zoo, what great looking babies, hope all goes well for both of them.

10-02-2007

I think there is a 2nd Indian rhino, and a 2nd elephant, still pregnant so two more births to come. Interesting that two of the female elephants have now each had two pregnancies, but the other two at Whipsnade (similar ages and history) have not so far conceived at all.

10-02-2007

Looking forward to hearing about the other new babies due, wow another Indian rhino and elephant, i guess Whipsnade have a place for the the new baby rhino alreadly since it is an important new bloodline. How old is the older female?, any charce of her breeding.

10-02-2007

I THINK that there is a 2nd rhino(the other Nepal female) and elephant still pregnant- that's presuming they haven't had any unsuccessful births- which they don't announce publicly.

The older female Indian rhino 'Roopa' is probably well past breeding age now- it was she who had the last calf seventeen years ago! (I think she had four during her breeding years) and I'd doubt they would try to breed from her again now. One of her sons 'Gaidi' is a breeding male at Berlin Zoo.

11-02-2007

its certainly been an up and down start to the elephant program, but it seems things are going well and no doubt whipsnade is playing a big part in reversing the statistics surrounding low birth rates within european collections etc.
its easy to condemn zoos for the lack of success at times, but even under the best of circumstances things dont always work out. i know cows arent exactly the same as elephants, but from tow of our cows so far we have one who has had two calves and another who has had one stillborn and a miscarriage. so if it can be that hard at times to breed domesticated livestock, no wonder zoos have found breeding elephants to be a bit of a mystery.

11-02-2007

If the other female Indian rhino gives birth as well that would be a huge shot in the arm for the EEP Breeding program, I hope they can get a calf every 3 years from these two ladys what a boost for the Europerns and now with the AI program starting up in Europe they can also use some of the Indian bulls that have been left out of the program so far, its looking good for them, I await the day our own Dora becomes a dad himself I feel this will be a big day in the Australian zoo world and a step forward for us, I am hoping if and when a calf does arrive that one of our other open range zoos steps up to the mark and becomes involed in the breeding of the Indian rhino. Go the rhinos.

11-02-2007

i'm into em mark. think they have potential to be the main attraction in asian-themed open-range exhibits, and a useful tool at gaining public interest and providing finacial support to projects preserving asian rhino in general.

11-02-2007

Your are 100% correct Pat, this spcies does act as a main attraction to a zoo (a draw card species). They also need captive breeding as they are an endangered species facing a big problem in Asia. Lets hope some of our other MAJOR open range zoos in this country step up to the mark as the Western plains zoo did, I comend them highly for what they did, they are leading the way. Go WPZ.

11-02-2007

Has the female greater one horned rhino been moved from Taronga to W.P.Z yet?

11-02-2007

dont think so, Zoopro would know.

11-02-2007

Nope, she's still at Taronga - not much breeding happening yet!!

11-02-2007

If you want to see the video of the new babies go to the London zoo website and then to the whipsnade zoo site, nice little video of them, the new Gorilla exhibit also looks interesting.