Post by Admin Rose on Oct 24, 2012 20:57:21 GMT -4
Five months away from giving birth, Calgary Zoo elephant Maharani miscarried in the wee hours Wednesday morning.
The calf, due in February or March after a 22-month gestation period, was born premature and stillborn, the zoo announced.
The weight of the fetus was a fraction of what would have been expected of a healthy full-term calf, said Dr. Jake Veasey, director of animal care, conservation and research. An early post-mortem has confirmed the male fetus had been dead for several weeks, he added.
“All indications are that Rani was calm the night before; she is calm now and we are monitoring her health and well-being closely,” according to Veasey, in a statement from the zoo.
“As with a human miscarriage we may never know the reason for this loss, but there is no evidence to indicate there was any external cause.”
The zoo had high hopes for the calf, which was Rani’s third attempt at motherhood.
In 2004, Rani gave birth but rejected the baby, which died within the month. She gave birth again in 2007 to a calf named Malti, a much-loved zoo resident that survived the initial rejection, only to die at 15 months of endotheliotropic herpesvirus.
To get ready for the new calf, the zoo consulted with elephant reproduction expert Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt, head of reproduction at the Institute of Zoo Biology and Wildlife Research in Berlin.
They also put more than $250,000 in elephant infrastructure this year specifically to provide a good place for Rani to give birth.
Zoo staff have reviewed the footage of what happened.
“(Rani) behaved perfectly appropriate. Immediately on giving birth she backed up, sought reassurance from the other cows and calmly approached the calf to encourage it to move,” Veasey said.
“Tragically the calf was already dead.”
The stillborn calf is crushing for zoo staff, and grief counsellors have been called in.
The miscarriage hasn’t altered the zoo’s plan to ultimately relocate the elephants out of Calgary to a new, larger home, though no timeline has been struck.
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