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Hopefully it's true that an Elephant never forgets and he'll be as happy to be home as everyone will be to have him here! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]
Cincinnati Zoo Welcomes Return of Bull Elephant
Sabu Comes Home after 10-year Absence ? First Public Appearance Later this Month!
CINCINNATI ? The Cincinnati Zoo is excited to announce the return of its 10,000-pound, 10-foot tall,
male Asian elephant, Sabu. Sabu, which means ?boy? in Thai, was rescued as an orphan from the wild, and
brought to the Cincinnati Zoo in January of 1991 from the Malaysia state of Perak. The 20-year-old bull
elephant returned last November to rekindle an old flame with former mate, Jati, one of the Zoo?s three female
Asian Elephants. Sabu and Jati sired a calf at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1998, a male named Ganesh. Four years
later, at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Missouri, Sabu sired another calf, this time a female named Nisha.
After a 10-year absence, Sabu has finally come home to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and will make
his first public appearance later this month!
?It?s been really amazing working with Sabu again after all of these years,? said Cecil Jackson, Jr.,
Team Leader and Elephant Manager at the Cincinnati Zoo, who worked with Sabu when he was at the Zoo 10
years ago. ?He?s such a great elephant. He knows he?s home.?
In preparation for Sabu?s return, the Zoo?s Elephant Reserve underwent major renovations to meet the
guidelines for housing a bull elephant defined by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA). Since bull
elephants are loners in the wild, meeting up with females only to breed, an 8,100 square-foot outdoor bachelor
pad was constructed just for Sabu. These expansions were made possible through the generous donation of the
Marge & Charles Schott Foundation.
Bringing Sabu back to Cincinnati allows the Zoo to reprise its role as a breeding facility for the Asian
Elephant Species Survival Plan (SSP), an AZA-managed program that aims to ensure the survival of Asian
elephants through captive breeding, research, education and conservation in the wild. Maintaining a captive
elephant population requires reproduction. Not only do zoos need to produce enough calves to keep the
population stable, but they also need to maintain a healthy level of genetic diversity, which makes Sabu that
much more important. Sabu is a proven breeder, and since he is wild-born, it is especially important for Sabu to
contribute his genes to the population.
Have to keep an eye on when his first official appearance will be in his new digs at the Zoo!
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Sabu will make his debut saturday!
(a lot of this article is the same information as the press release above)
Last Updated: 11:36 am | Friday, August 8, 2008
Sabu returns to Cincinnati Zoo
enquirer.com ? August 8, 2008
An old friend is back at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden: Sabu, a 20-year-old, 10,000-pound Asian bull elephant who has spent the last 10 years at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Mo., is home again and will formally meet his public Saturday. He?s the first male in house since 1998.
Sabu will join hometown females Jati, Schottzie and Mai-Thai and, as in the case of zoos worldwide, immediately become a top attraction, ranking up there with the gorillas and giraffes.
He?ll also dive headlong into a breeding program built around a two-pronged plan.
Prong one will be Sabu and Jati breeding again. They were successful in 1998 when the couple produced Ganesh, the first elephant conceived and born in Ohio since the Ice Age.
?We?re very positive about the chances for success there,? said Cecil Jackson Jr., 47, team leader and elephant manager, as well as a 34-year zoo veteran who began his career there at age 14.
?Actually, they already bred about six weeks ago, but we won?t know if it took for about 10 more weeks. But we?re already monitoring her blood and urine.?
If the breeding session is successful, Jati will deliver a 200-300 pound baby after a 22-month gestation.
Schottzie and Mai-Thai are not breeding options.
?They?re great aunties who have been around babies and know what to do. They even took over care of Ganesh when Jati needed a break, but they?re not going to breed,? Jackson said. ?Schottzie is 36, Mai-Thai is 38 and 23 is the generally accepted age to halt breeding.?
The second prong of the breeding plan is artificial insemination overseen by the Species Survival Plan, a program developed by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums to boost the captive population of endangered species.
With 30,000 to 40,000 left in the wild, Asian elephants are classified as endangered.
Once the insemination program swings into gear, staff from the zoo?s Center for Research of Endangered Wildlife will collect semen and share it with zoos nationwide that don?t have a male. That?s most of them ? females outnumber males five to one in the United States.
Sabu is one of the most genetically valuable bulls in America, Jackson said, because he?s a proven breeder and his bloodline is new to the captive population. (A new bloodline assures genetic diversity, one of the goals of SSP.)
Other than Ganesh, who was shipped to the Columbus Zoo in 2003 and died there in 2005, Sabu only has one other offspring, a female named Nisha born at Dickerson.
Sabu, a wild-caught orphan, was a favorite attraction here from 1991 to 1998. He was moved to Dickerson when Jati was expecting and the zoo?s facility wasn?t equipped to handle a baby and an adult male. He arrived back in Cincinnati in November, but has been off-display, deep within the elephant house, undergoing conditioning, learning to sit for baths, stand still for a daily physical, semen collection and general retraining.
Sabu?s new home is not like the one he left in 1998. His 8,100-square-foot yard was paid for by a grant from the Marge and Charles Schott Foundation. It has been rehabbed into a bachelor pad separate from the females? yard so they can live as they do in the wild, where males and females don?t mingle except to breed.
His area is lushly green with an array of plantings, waterfall, small pool and safety features designed according to AZA guidelines for housing bull elephants.
The specific guidelines exist because males are more aggressive than females. They need room to roam, and double barriers that include an open fence and a pulsating cattle fence that wobbles but doesn?t shock. The barriers between him and the public don?t block visibility, but are spaced so his 2?-foot tusks and 6-foot trunk can?t reach a guest. There is also a less obvious array of features for dealing with a ?hands-off? elephant.
All this is because of the nature of bull elephants. Males regularly enter a cycle called musth, a period of heightened testosterone production when they become more aggressive, often to the point of throwing food and other debris at visitors, not to mention their keepers. It can last two weeks to five months.
?Elephants are like people,? Jackson said. ?They have mood swings, they get testy, they react to hormones. Basically, elephants are lazy and happy to lounge around, eat and wade around their pool. But during musth, all they want to do is breed and fight.
?So we provide for that as part of the care ? If we don?t care for them well and we don?t breed them, we won?t have any in 50 years.?
Hope he likes his new digs (I'm sure he will)
