European elephants

18-02-2008

Also worth noting, that the female at Tbilisi Zoo is 11 years old. This means that she was roughly the same age as Thong Dee when she became pregnant... I wonder if there was an outcry

18-02-2008

I think many of these animal libbers have a skewed idea about when animals are ready to breed. Because elephants have a similar lifespan to humans, they equate them with having similar stages of development too, whereas of course there's no reason for doing so..

18-02-2008

A propos - maybe some elephant-loving zoobeat member makes such a good database for african elephants as asianelephant.net ? Would be great resource. And for rhinos, too !

19-02-2008

Rhinos- it has to be Jelle....

20-02-2008

Do not get me started, my friend ... I have the complete listings of both Asian Elephas and African Loxodonta at my disposal ... too!

20-02-2008

Anthropomorphism is the word you are probably looking for!

Sadly, most animal libbers have zilch knowledge of wildlife in general and seem to want to mask the very dire state of our environment (release them to the wild, an option only rarely available).

Is wildlife so much better off in the wild? Are not most national parks surrounded on all sides by human habitation and in dangered of habitat encroachment, destruction etcetera? So in effect, our environment is already a big zoo (lest we do not call it that) and just some have no fences around them ........

Coming back to the elephant topic: an elephant is ready to breed when she is ready. Whether she is 6, 8, 12 or 20 is simply irrelevant. Besides in a stable family group environment they are relatively safe (sure primiparous females have an increased risk of the first calf not surviving, but that is a common phenomenom in nature).

20-02-2008

Of course I agree in principal with this, with one proviso. I think there's some evidence that rich diets in captivity(and particularly handrearing)stimulates growth and sometimes also encourages the earlier onset of oestrus in females of certain species, notably Gorillas- but it could apply to Elephants as well... The youngest female at Chester is 'Sundara' the daughter of the 'teenage' mother Sithami who was only six when she was born. I was told last year that now even the young 'Sundara' has been showing signs of oestrus at only THREE years old and they keep the bull (Upali) away from her during those periods.I do'nt believe it would happen in the wild, but what do you make of that....?

20-02-2008

Yes! Yes! Yes! Ask Vinch for formula of his asianelephant.net page and fill it with other data and pics! I asked him some time ago about african page and he had not time.

20-02-2008

Yes, protein rich diets play a part in the earlier onset of sexual maturity and oestrus.

20-02-2008

Do you want me to do one on hornbills?

__________________
Jonathan Beilby-www.zooscene.co.uk

(Join the hornbill group-www.zoobeat.com/group.php?groupid=2)

writhed hornybills idea
20-02-2008

Would it be possible to have databases of each species ; eg elephant , rhinos , hornbills .... whatever but on a seperate page ( not just another thread )
similar to the Gallery ..... We could have it as the "animal reference centre "

20-02-2008

absolutely not....

20-02-2008

They would be extremely useful- but a lot of hard work for the compilers...

20-02-2008

What I was hinting at was that there must be a limit between what is the lowest age at which these species first bear young naturally- and an even earlier age (as above- induced by protein rich feeding) at which they may (accidentally) be capable of breeding in captivity.

Of course I don't regard 8 years as too young for an elephant....

20-02-2008

I think that would be cool and I will contritube as best I can should such a project ever be realised. It would be like our own private ISIS

__________________
I am Toddy, the zoo-enthusiast from Denmark!
Different zoos visited: 77
Favourite animal: Aardvark
Website: www.zoos.dk