Learn about elephant pregnancies in this Bitesize Bonus episode of the Sedgwick County ZooCast.
READ AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
VIGNETTE (00:00)
EMILY BISHOP: Just like with people, elephants have to go to the doctor for checkups.
Although, these checkups don’t involve sitting in a stuffy waiting room, flipping through copies of “People Magazine” from 2014.
No, at the Zoo the doctors make “house calls.”
These checkups happen fairly frequently. The elephants sometimes receive foot checks, like you might have your feet checked at a podiatrist. They receive physicals, like you would from a primary care physician. And weekly, they have their blood drawn.
These blood draws allow Zoo vets to check up on the overall health of the elephant. The blood panel is used to monitor various vitals and chemical levels- such as cortisol, testosterone, and progesterone.
And recently at Sedgwick County Zoo, two of our elephants have had a change in their hormone levels, which indicates big news not just for the elephants at our Zoo, but at Zoos nationwide.
INTRO (01:04)
BISHOP: Hello, and welcome to the Sedgwick County ZooCast Bitesize Bonus.
I’m your host, Emily Bishop, and in this mini episode we’re giving you the Zoo Scoop on elephant pregnancies.
ELEPHANT PREGNANCIES (01:23)
BISHOP: Everything about an elephant is big. They’re the biggest land animal, on average measuring around 10 ft. tall to the shoulder and weighing over 10 thousand pounds. Their ears alone measure around 2 feet wide, about one third the height of the average American man.
So, it should come as no surprise that elephant pregnancies exist on a larger scale as well. Elephants have the longest gestation period of any mammal at around 22 months.
Part of the reason for this marathon pregnancy is the physical size of the elephant. When they’re born, the calves will be around 220-330 pounds.
This long gestation period also allows calves to be more fully developed upon birth. This means their brains and motor skills are more developed when they’re born.
And speaking of elephants being born, Sedgwick County Zoo is beyond excited to announce the upcoming birth of two elephants. Here’s elephant care manager Lauren Ripple.
LAUREN RIPPLE: We’ve been waiting for several- several years for one of our elephants to be pregnant. And now not only one, but two of them are pregnant.
BISHOP: Simunye and Talia, two of the elephants that call SCZ home, are around four months into their pregnancies. So, we can expect calves on the ground around March of 2025.
These pregnancies were confirmed through hormonal observation during routine blood work.
RIPPLE: Yeah, their progesterone is elevated for eight weeks normally. So, once it’s elevated past that eight weeks, you can start to suspect that they might be pregnant, but it’s really in that 12-16 week period. And you need a couple of months’ worth of that elevated progesterone to comfortably confirm that they are pregnant. So, it took a while; it takes four to five months to confirm a pregnancy and an elephant.
BISHOP: This will be the first time SCZ has had an elephant be born here.
You might be thinking to yourself that you’re pretty sure you’ve seen little elephants at the Zoo before.
If you visited in the early 70s, that would be true. Stephanie and Cinda, the Zoo’s first elephants, were around two years old when they arrived in 1972.
And in 2016 when our Eswatini elephants arrived, they were smaller than most elephants due to the fact they were malnourished and because, well, that was seven years ago. Like people, elephants get bigger as they get older.
For example, when Titan, our 14-year-old bull, arrived from Eswatini, he was seven and weighed around 2400 pounds. He’s nearly tripled in size now and weighs close to 7,000 pounds.
So, while SCZ has been home to “little” elephants, we’ve never been home to “baby” elephants.
SCZ’S PREGNANT ELEPHANTS (04:14)
BISHOP: Our mothers to be are Simunye and Talia.
Simunye is estimated to be around 27 years old and has already had one calf- Titan. It is possible that she had other calves when she lived in Eswatini, we can’t say for certain one way or the other.
Talia, who is around twelve, is a first-time mother.
And as far as who the father is? Well, we’ll need to call Maury Povich in two years.
For Simunye, elephants Callee or Ajani could be the father. And for Talia it could be Callee, Ajani, or Titan. We won’t know until after the calves are born and we’re able to do a paternity test. We also won’t know the sex of the calves until they’re born. Due to their scale in utero, it’s difficult to determine sex via ultrasound.
If you find yourself at the Sedgwick County Zoo in the next few years, you might want to keep an eye out for Simunye and Talia. Here’s Lauren Ripple on how to identify them.
RIPPLE: So, to identify Simunye, she does have crooked tusks- one goes up a little higher than the other. She has more skin buildup on her face, she actually is- has a really petite face and small eyes. She’ll be one of the bigger adult females compared to all the other juvenile females.
Talia is our smallest elephant, which it’s hard to tell unless she’s next to somebody else because she’s 5,000 pounds, which is bigger than a car. But tusks are pretty even. She has a little dent on her forehead, and she does have a scar on her right hip. So that makes her a little easier to tell.
BISHOP: These elephant pregnancies are a huge deal. And we’re not just excited because everyone loves baby animals. We’re excited because they’re significant for the sustainability of African elephants in North America.
RIPPLE: Yeah, the- the North American population is actually coming to a bottleneck where we have a lot of older elephants that are about to age out of the population. Stephanie here is 52 years old. She’s tied for the third oldest African elephant in North America. And the longest on record was 56 in North America. So, this is huge for the sustainability of the population. We have two confirmed pregnancies here, but we actually have another nine confirmed pregnancies in North America. So having 11 right now is huge to help that sustainability of the population where future generations can come and see them in zoos.
BISHOP: Every elephant birth at an AZA accredited institution plays a crucial role in safeguarding the future of these animals. It ensures that future generations will be able to see them and learn about them. And when we learn to appreciate and care for our animal ambassadors in zoos, it has a direct impact on their wild counterparts.
LEARN ABOUT WILD LIGHTS (07:05)
BISHOP: That’s what’s new at zoo with African Elephant pregnancies. But keep listening after a brief message about upcoming Zoo events to learn about what’s missing from a baby elephant when it’s born.
Follow the white rabbit to a land of wonder at this year’s Wild Lights.
Come face-to-face with One-of-a-kind Asian Lantern Sculptures. Maybe a Cheshire cat will cross your path, or the queen’s guard of playing cards. Be the guest of honor at a tea party hosted by a hatter and a hare.
Wednesday through Sunday – October 11 through December 17 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Tickets start at $15 and are available online or in person.
Journey through the looking glass at Wild Lights
WHAT AN ELEPHANT’S MISSING WHEN IT’S BORN (08:00)
BISHOP: Elephant’s tusks aren’t just decorative- they’re aids in everyday life.
Their tusks are used to dig for water, to strip bark off of trees, and to defend themselves.
However, not all elephants have tusks. An estimated 5% of African elephants do not have tusks- Sedgwick County Zoo’s elephant, Arusi, has this genetic mutation.
Most likely, the increase in tuskless elephants is the result of poaching. The elephants that don’t have tusks are less likely to be poached, and therefore more likely to reproduce and bear offspring that also do not have tusks, and so on and so forth.
But you can’t tell if an elephant has this mutation at birth because all elephants are born without tusks.
Well, that’s not completely true the quote unquote “tusks” they have are milk teeth and they fall out when they’re around one year old.
An elephant’s permanent tusks don’t start to grow in until they’re around two, and over time will begin to protrude from their lips. A tusk is just an elongate molar tooth.
An elephant only grows one set of tusks during its lifetime, but their tusks never stop growing.
OUTRO (09:20)
BISHOP: Thanks for listening to this Bitesize Bonus episode of the Sedgwick County ZooCast.
For more information on elephant pregnancies at the Zoo be sure to follow us on social media, which is linked in the description of this episode. And check out our website: scz.org
I’ve been Emily Bishop and we hope you enjoyed this mini episode of the Sedgwick County ZooCast.
