An elephant dubbed "the leggy blonde" has made a little piece of history. Noorjahan, whose nickname come from her distinctive hair, has become the first Asian elephant in the UK to become pregnant by artificial insemination. Keepers at Twycross Zoo said the procedure had been "incredibly successful" and that the baby elephant was expected to be born in August 2009. The Leicestershire zoo decided to use artificial insemination because it had no male elephants in its collection. Moving elephants between zoos for mating is avoided because it is bad for herd dynamics. The foetus is growing steadily Zoo manager John Ray said: "The (implanting) was done on the first time. "That was down to the keeper's really good training regime with the elephant, so she was able to stand steady enough." Elephant pregnancies are famously lengthy and sometimes suffer complications. But Mr Ray said: "We're incredibly hopeful and have our fingers crossed." Ultrasound scans have shown the foetus growing steadily. Keeper Sue Baeumler said: "It's a long wait, but we hope next year we will have our calf on the ground." She described Noorjahan as "our star of the herd" and amongst the zoo's best behaved elephants. "She can be sly, but she keeps trying to please people," Ms Baeumler added. Noorjahan arrived at the zoo from West Bengal in 1998 when she was two-and-a-half years old. At the time, two other Twycross elephants were pregnant and her main role was helping the "expecting" mothers to become familiar with smaller elephants. But Noorjahan now finds herself on the brink of adding a new calf to the herd.
I guess the zoo is finally confident of a birth after giving this news a press release some 6 months after AI was attempted. Tigerlemurguy, can you post the source of this article?
Never mind, I found that the sire is Emmet over at Whipsnade. British zoo celebrates first elephant in the UK to conceive by artificial insemination | Mail Online
Interesting, I know a friend of my has seen the scan pic of pregnant elephant at Twycross I while back. I'll ask him, but I gather its the same animal.
That is a pretty broad statement. They have moved three elephants themselves, one quite recently. By this I think they are referring to sending females away for breeding, but Bull elephants are moved around European Zoos at regular intervals otherwise all groups would suffer inbreeding. It also doesn't mention that keeping females with no male contact is also possibly 'bad for herd dynamics'
Aside from this debate: is there now a chance that both other cows at Twycross without access to a bull become candidates for AI? Can we petition Suzanne Boardman?
I believe it is up to the EEP. Also only one of the two mothers is still considered to be reproductively suitable/fit anyway.
I wouldn`t waste your time trying it as it won`t make any difference Twycross will just carry on doing it on thing.
There was always, something that wanted many other memembers as well as myself want the Twycross elephants to be used for breeding, but zoogirraffe is right there is no point wasn't time on this. Congratulations to Twycross anyway for Noor Jahan's pregnancy,
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Leggy blonde' pregnant with calf Here is the article which Tigerlemurguy took the information. The website also has a good video on there about the elephants.
Can't remember but it was definately mentioned somewhere quite recently that examination had shown one of them was nonreproductive, and at the same time they said that 'Tara' was still a little young.
well you can forget it... (Norjahan wasn't bred t Twycross) I'm quite sure they intend to keep the 4 elephants as they are and hope to use AI to try and breed from one occassionally. Unless the EEP can effect a change, or if anymore of them become unmanageable and need to leave.
Oh that's a dissapointing, then again the only reason Karishma moved was because of a apparent bad behaviour,
