Prague Zoo celebrates birth of first ‘100% Prague-bred’ elephant

Prague Zoo has reason to celebrate, the birth in the early hours of Tuesday of its latest addition: a new baby Indian elephant. It is the first time in the zoo’s long history that an elephant was not only born but also bred at the facility.

Photo: CTK

It is not the first time an elephant has been born at Prague Zoo: readers may remember Sita three years ago; but Tuesday saw a new first shortly after 3 AM: the birth of a 104 kilo male that was also conceived at the facility, the first time in the zoo’s 82-year history. The zoo’s director, Miroslav Bobek, said the birth was one of the most moving moments he had witnessed, although he warned that technically, the baby is “not out of the woods yet”.

He spoke to Czech Radio’s flagship station Radiožurnál earlier:

Photo: CTK

“Knock on wood, everything has gone well so far. The hardest part, the birth itself, was successful and later, at 7 AM, the baby took its first drink. So we have reason to be cautiously optimistic. I should point out that it is not the first time an elephant was born at our zoo but this baby is the first ‘fully’ Prague-conceived elephant in the 80-plus years we have been breeding them.”

Successfully breeding of elephants in captivity, he said, was rare, emphasising that it was also the first time the mother, Janita (who came to the zoo in 2012 from Sri Lanka) had given birth. Mr Bobek made clear that complications could never be ruled out, pointing to, for example, the death of a baby Asian elephant born a few years ago at Ostrava Zoo. That animal had been born premature and sickly in 2011 and died not long after. The zoo’s director again:

Photo: CTK

“Basically you have to get through the most critical period and we’re not fully past that yet. We’ll see tomorrow about the possibility of taking some photographs. It is a little too soon to talk about visitors seeing the baby. We’ll address the situation again tomorrow and see.”

The father of the baby is Mekong, but no longer lives at Prague Zoo but in the Netherlands. Miroslav Bobek said that the role of the father would instead be served by a male named Ankhor but made clear that would not be for some time, explaining that baby elephants are raised in a matriarchy of female adults.