The National Zoo announced Friday that its 5-week-old Asian elephant calf, Linh Mai, will make her debut before the general public — and on the elephant cam — on April 22, an introduction to human society that follows a brief health scare.
The female calf was born at the zoo on Feb. 2, the first elephant to be born there in 25 years, and only the third in the zoo’s 136-year history. Asian elephants are considered a critically endangered species, the zoo said.
The zoo also posted new video of Linh Mai on its website, showing her loudly interacting with her herd mates. The zoo, in Northwest Washington, now has seven elephants, including the baby.
“Watching an elephant calf explore and interact with her herd is one of the most heartwarming and joyful experiences you can have at a zoo,” Brandie Smith, the zoo’s director, said in a statement.
“We are so excited to introduce Linh Mai to our members and the public, she said. “As the first elephant born here in nearly 25 years, her birth was historic, not only for our Zoo family but also for this critically endangered species.”
The zoo’s elephant community center has been closed since the calf’s birth to provide a quiet space for Linh Mai to bond with the other elephants and her keepers.
She has had a few setbacks since then. Her mother, Nhi Linh, and grandmother, Trong Nhi, continue to show some displeasure with her, conduct that began after she was born. Nhi Linh is a first-time mother.
Robbie Clark, elephant manager and acting curator of the zoo’s elephant trails exhibit, said caretakers are cautiously optimistic that Linh Mai will win over both her mother and grandmother.
“We’re still working on that relationship,” Clark said in a video interview Friday. “I can’t tell you we’ve found the magic yet.”
The calf’s father is the zoo’s amiable male, Spike, whom Linh Mai met for the first time on March 3, Clark wrote on the zoo’s website.
Linh Mai has been well-accepted by other females of the herd, especially Bozie, the dominant female in the herd, and Swarna.
“Swarna has stepped right in as an amazing guardian for Linh Mai,” Clark wrote in a post on the website.
“Although Swarna has never birthed a calf herself, she is a natural when it comes to instinctually caring for one,” he wrote.
At night, “On multiple occasions … we have seen Swarna purposefully wake up to check on Linh Mai before laying back down to sleep.”
Swarna is 52.
Linh Mai also experienced some diarrhea shortly after she was born.
Keepers noticed that she wasn’t gaining weight properly and seemed to be lacking energy. They also worried that she might get dehydrated.
So for 14 days she was treated with a procedure called a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT). Six times a day, two teaspoons a “slurry” of feces from a healthy baby elephant at a zoo in Ohio were added to Linh Mai’s formula.
The idea was that feces from a donor elephant with a healthy gut biome would infuse healthy bacteria into a Linh Mai’s disrupted biome and fight the diarrhea caused by the disruption.
The zoo had used the treatment before in cheetahs and a sloth, and it has been used successfully in humans, dogs, horses and kangaroos, according to the zoo and scientific literature.
She has responded well to the treatment. “She’s thriving,” Clark said Friday. “Considering the circumstances, she is doing very well.”
“She’s on a good poop schedule,” he said. “The consistency is great. We’re happy with the frequency.”
She is also growing. Linh Mai weighed 308 pounds at birth, but on Friday morning she weighed in at 332 pounds.
The zoo said its members are invited to an exclusive viewing of Linh Mai on-site from April 15 to 19. Nonmembers should reserve free entry passes and paid parking passes up to 30 days in advance of their visit through the zoo’s website.
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