Zurich – A 19 -year -old Asian elephant at the Zurich Zoo gave birth this weekend to a calf whose name, from letter Z, will be announced this week.
A light -sensitive monitoring chamber picked up the birth before the dawn on Saturday and the first wobbled steps of the baby inside the Kaeng Krang Krachan Park of the Zoo. He is now the home of six of the Pachyderms: four women, including Mother Farha; Bull Elephant and Father Thai; and the new calf.
The zoo director, Severin Dressen said that the staff was happy but “still cautious” about birth.
“The first weeks of the life of a calf are always the most delicate, even if the calf currently seems healthy and in shape,” he said in a statement.
The Asian elephant, or Elephas Maximus, is a critical danger with approximately 50,000 estimated in nature, and its number is decreasing, said the zoo. The zoo generates elephants as part of conservation efforts under the program of endangered species, Dressen said.
Zoo employees claimed to keep Farha, already mother of three children, far from another woman named Panang, who has had little previous experience with young animals, and the separation will continue during the next few days.
Such births are relatively rare in zoos compared to those of other species due to the gestation period of almost two years of the elephant, zoo officials said.
A zoo spokesman said that the name of the new calf will be announced after a staff meeting on Wednesday, but 2025 is a year “Z”, so the nickname will automatically begin with that letter.
