The National Zoo said Monday that one of its Asian elephants is pregnant and could give birth within the next few months, potentially bringing the zoo its first elephant calf in 25 years.
The zoo has had only two elephant births in its 136-year history. The last was in 2001.
The pregnant elephant, Nhi Linh, 12, is due early next year, the zoo said.
“The birth of an elephant is such an incredible, special thing,” said the zoo’s director, Brandie Smith. “We are going to have an opportunity to celebrate that miracle.”
“Asian elephants are critically endangered, so every single elephant makes a difference in the world,” Smith said in a telephone interview Friday.
The happiness has been tempered, though, because the zoo had hoped to welcome two calves. Nhi Linh’s mother, Trong Nhi, 22, had also been pregnant, but her pregnancy ended prematurely, the zoo said.
“The joy is tinged with sadness,” Smith said. “But we do really want to focus on Nhi Linh.” Smith said the younger elephant is doing well.
Should her calf be born, it will be the culmination of the zoo’s more-than-15-year project to build a multigenerational herd that could produce offspring and aid in the survival of the Asian elephant.
The arrival of an elephant calf would also be a cultural happening in the Washington region, rivaling the attraction of the zoo’s rock-star giant pandas. Baby elephants are notoriously cute.
“Anybody who’s seen one knows that you could just watch them for hours,” Smith said. “It’s just so much fun.”
Trong Nhi and Nhi Linh both mated naturally with the zoo’s male elephant, Spike, 44, in their outdoor enclosure in April 2024. Some zoogoers witnessed the mating, officials said.
By that summer, based on elevated hormone levels, zoo experts suspected the two might be pregnant. By December, they were sure.
Zoo experts said they are not certain why Trong Nhi’s calf died.
“We don’t know for sure, and we very likely will never know for sure,” said Don Neiffer, the zoo’s chief veterinarian. “The calf itself could have some developmental abnormalities, just like happens in people.”
“I’ve worked with elephants for 33 years,” he said. “It is full of joy and sorrow.”
Trong Nhi was well into her 18- to 22-month gestation period and was also due early next year.
“Things were apparently moving along just fine,” said Tony Barthel, the zoo’s senior curator. “On Thursday, October 30th … she suddenly started displaying behaviors that we interpret as indicating pain.”
Zoo experts thought she might be going into early labor or having some kind of gastrointestinal problem, he said. They put her under close observation. Over the next few days, her discomfort subsided.
But when blood tests were done, her hormone levels showed that “the most likely scenario was that the calf had passed away,” Barthel said. Such an outcome is not unheard of, but it’s not common this late in a pregnancy, he said.
The zoo has six Asian elephants. Three others have been euthanized in recent years because of old age and painful medical issues. And the first calf born there died suddenly in 1995.
The zoo owns all its elephants except Spike, who is owned by the Miami zoo, where he was born, spokeswoman Annalisa Meyer said. The National Zoo will own any calves that are born, she said.
Nhi Linh’s birth window is from early January to late March, with an expected due date around mid-February, Barthel said.
Active labor for an elephant is about three to five hours, said Robbie Clark, assistant curator of the Elephant Trails habitat. The calves weigh 200 to 300 pounds when they are born. “We want to see 200-plus pounds,” he said.
The zoo experts said they have been monitoring the animals closely and will be present when Nhi Linh goes into labor.
When a calf is born, its umbilical cord breaks. The baby cannot stand right away, so keepers will pull it away from the mother, who, for safety, is restrained in a stall.
“The females can injure the calf,” said Neiffer, the chief veterinarian. “They’re excited. They’ll kick.”
The first elephant born at the zoo, a female named Kumari, was stomped and kicked by her mother after she was born in 1993. “She tried to kill it,” an assistant zoo curator said at the time. “She didn’t know what it was. Sometimes animals do that.”
The calf survived, only to collapse and die of illness 16 months later.
In this case, once the baby is pulled to the side, “Mom’s given a chance to chill,” Neiffer said.
The “birth team” will help the calf stand up. “Typically, a calf should be able to stand up and walk and move in an hour or two,” said Clark, the assistant curator.
The keepers will then attach a safety strap to the calf and carefully introduce the calf to the mother to bond and nurse. If the mother is agitated, the baby can be pulled back.
“The safety of our team is paramount,” Clark said. “There’s risks involved at every corner throughout this process.”
The National Zoo, which has had elephants since 1891, hasn’t had one born since the 2001 birth of its male, Kandula, now at the Oklahoma City zoo.
“We tried many times,” Barthel said, breeding Spike with other female elephants at the zoo and using artificial insemination. But nothing worked.
The acquisition in 2022 of Trong Nhi and Nhi Linh from the Rotterdam zoo, in the Netherlands, offered a new opportunity, he said.
It’s not clear what will happen to Trong Nhi’s fetus, Neiffer said.
It could eventually be passed, or delivered stillborn on schedule. “It is possible that the fetus would become mummified and stay inside her uterus permanently,” he said.
“All those scenarios have existed in our captive elephant population in one way or another.”
As for a future Trong Nhi pregnancy, “if she passes the fetus, she may be able to get pregnant again,” he said. “There’s a lot of uncertainties.”
Meanwhile, if a calf is born, there’s a role for Trong Nhi to play as part of the family, the zoo said.
“I hope that she provides some guidance for her daughter,” Barthel said. “That’s a role we’re really counting on her to play.”
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