‘Feisty’ elephant calf dies at zoo
The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium’s 3-month-old African elephant was euthanized Wednesday, ending three months of round-the-clock care and efforts by a team of staff, veterinarians, and international experts on saving abandoned elephant calves. The female failed to put on weight and, it was determined, could not survive.
“It is with great sadness that I announce our baby elephant passed away this morning,” an emotional zoo CEO Barbara Baker said at a news conference.
Dr. Baker said that while she and the zoo staff care deeply for each of the zoo’s animals, the elephant’s death was made worse by the calf’s “great character.”
“She was feisty. She was a character, very sweet and loving,” she said, having to pause several times during the 15-minute news conference to compose herself.
The calf was euthanized after a series of challenges made saving her life difficult, at best, from the beginning, Dr. Baker said. Zoo officials would not share details about the method used to put the calf down.
Her death put the zoo back in the spotlight in the ongoing debate about keeping elephants captive in zoo settings. A press release announcing the death addressed concerns from outside organizations — “criticisms and accusations from those with limited information and no animal care experience.”
During her news conference, Dr. Baker also addressed the
anticipated criticism from “people [who] often have misinformation and don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Within two hours of the announcement, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has been calling on the zoo to end its elephant breeding program and has been criticizing the handling of the baby elephant — put out a statement further criticizing the zoo.
“This elephant’s short life ended without the comfort of her mother or other elephants. The Pittsburgh Zoo has publicly glossed over the apparent true extent of the health crisis that this unnamed baby must have suffered,” it said.
Zoo officials would not respondto the PETA statement.
The zoo would not allow any of its elephant keepers to speak with reporters. Zoo spokeswoman Tracy Gray said they were “just heartbroken and want to be left alone.”
She was born May 31, a month early, at the zoo’s International Conservation Center in Somerset County to Seeni, a 23-year-old rescued from Botswana in 2011.
She only weighed 184 pounds, which is 52 pounds lower than the average African elephant calf’s weight at birth. On top of that, Seeni then rejected her and-produced no milk for her.
She was moved from Somerset to the elephant enclosure at the zoo and introduced to the six-member herd there. The herd’s matriarch, Tasha, was affectionate to the calf, but zoo staff had to care for her, feeding her by hand with a mix of elephant’s milk – taken from another zoo female – and a special formula.
The calf did well enough that she was finally put on view to the public July 7 to the delight of visitors. But the joy was short-lived. She was taken off public view July 24 after experiencing teething problems. Her weight had dropped then to 178 pounds when she should have been gaining a pound every two days.
Dr. Baker said Wednesday that in consultations with the world’s experts on hand-rearing elephant calves, “They warned us … that this would be a very difficult process and this [teething] was the time they lost a lot of calves.”
On Aug. 23, after the calf stopped eating, the zoo took the drastic step of surgically inserting a feeding tube into her esophagus.
“You know, she was a feisty calf and she had a lot of fight,” Dr. Baker said. “So we fought to help her gain weight.”
But, she added: “We knew when we put the feeding tube in that this was our last chance.”
Despite the flow of food, the calf continued to lose weight and was just 166 pounds when she died, Dr. Baker said.
“We suspect that she was dealing with some sort of birth defect and was not able to gain weight,” Dr. Baker said, noting that a full necropsy would be done to try to learn as much as possible about what led to her death. Results from tests are expectedin eight to 12 weeks.
After the necropsy, the calf’s body will be taken back to the Somerset location, where she will be buried on the property.
Many zoo patrons learned about the death on their cell phones when news alerts and Facebook live video alerts popped up.
“It’s definitely sad,” said Angel Roberts of Plum, who was viewing the African elephant exhibit at the zoo with her son, Logan, 3, Wednesday morning, just after watching the news conference on her cell phone. “But it definitely seems like the zoo did everything they could possibly do.”
The sign at the Elephant Care Center on Wednesday still said it was closed because, “Our elephant calf is not yet readyto be on exhibit.”
Marc Anthony Riley and his family from Monaca were looking for the calf and learned it had died from a reporter.
He and his family had followed the baby’s problems in news stories, and he said he understood the zoo’s decision to euthanize her.
“You can’t leave her in pain like that,” he said.
The calf’s death was tough for zoo staffers other than the elephant keepers.
“It’s hard for everybody,” Kathy Suthard, the zoo’s lead mammal keeper, said during a short interview at the zoo, fighting tears as she walked near the African section.
She does not currently work with the elephants, but she said she was good friends with the elephant staff and had seen the baby in passing.
“Especially because it was so feisty, we thought, ‘If any baby can do it, this baby can do it,’’’ she said.