Great news from Canada, just received word from Charlie Gray that an Asian female calf was born last night, 242 pounds. This would be a second generation calf, the mother "Natasha" having been born at the same facility in 1994. The father is "Rex", formerly known as "Barney" on the Vargas Show. Charlie is to be congratulated for maintaining a first class breeding program. |
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Another calf born!
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7 comments:
Great News Charlie.. Hope all goes well for mom and Baby, and of course you and yours.. Lee Stevens
The many reproductive successes enjoyed by the program in Ontario are a pretty clear repudiation of "activists" claims that elephants can't be successfully kept in cold climate locales.
Great point Ben. Hope the birth gets good exposure in Detroit papers.
Jim A.
Some lady elephant authority in Chicago (Government funded no doubt)has concluded that the reason Zoo elephants feet go bad is because in the jungle they roam 25 miles a day. I think a more logical answer is that most Zoo elephants are ovefed, overweight and in some instances, stand in urine a lot. If the feet are trimmed regularly and they can stand in a dry place (maybe even a deck) you should have no problems.
As for the 25 miles a day, elephants eat a lot and consequently have to graze for great distances. If someone came by and dropped off a load of hay they would roam zero miles.
That so called sanctuary in Tenn (ugh) has those elephants so fat they are getting crippled. Four meals on wheels a day no less. Has anyone noticed the tarp shelter Delhi has. Where did the three million dollar barn go. She helped raise this money. She gets a bunch of tarps from W-Mart?
Given a chance to live the life a couch potato, a lot of animals will do just that. Buckles said something interesting a few weeks ago when he mentioned that the old overland shows seemed to have fewer problems with adult male bulls because they marched from town to town every night, and they got tired. Behaviorally they probably did a bit on grazing along the way. Leaves off a tree branch overhanging the lane, a tuft of tall prairie grass here and that. It kept things interesting. As far back as the early 1940's the Swiss behaviorist and zoo director Heine Hediger wrote about the importance of training both as a form of mental stimulation in captive management and as a means of physical exercise. Liberationists have made training a dirty word. In fairness working with elephants is not without risk, and some zoos have seemingly embraced protected contact schemes to reduced staff injuries. It's handy to have an excuse not to train, but is it good management? Maybe the result is couch potato elephants? It's a little bit ironic. For years Animal Rights activists claimed shorter longevities in zoo elephants than in wild populations, until a careful review of the statistics demonstrated that simply wasn't true. Anecdotal evidence collected by exotic animal medicine practitioners suggests that circus elephants (working/performing animals) may be healthier and live longer than their zoo counterparts. Maybe what that suggests is that working/performing animals have a better diet than wild populations, and more exercise and mental stimulation that some percentage of the zoo population, so they're healthier and live longer. By eschewing training the rescue facilities in a cool climate portion TN and a cool climate portion of CA seem to be offering little more than larger "yards" for the animals they propose to take from zoos and circuses.
Bless you, Bless you, Bless you.
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