ROZIE’S GOT A THORN BY HER SIDE
‘Thorn’ chosen from over 3,000 submitted for newest BioPark member
After 3,000 submissions were narrowed down to three, voters selected the name for Rozie’s calf.
As everyone knows from the 1980s big hair metal band, Poison, “every rose has its thorn.”
Now Rozie the elephant, who gave birth to a calf last week at the ABQ BioPark Zoo, also has a Thorn.
On Wednesday the zoo announced the baby’s name, Thorn, was selected from about 3,000 submissions from local residents, said zoo spokesman Greg Jackson.
The elephant keepers narrowed the choices down to three — Thorn, Solo and Ren, the latter two being Star Wars references in deference to the baby’s birth date: May
the Fourth (be with you), said Jackson.
Solo and Ren were by no means the only Star Warssuggested names. The list also included Boba-phant, Jedi, Darth, Han, Chewbacca, Anakin, Skywalker, Yoda, Luke, Obi, R2-D2, Jango, Finn, Lando and Zuckuss.
Among the other possibilities were Duke, Joey, Thumper, Packy, Pixie, Pedro, Poppy, Lorenzo, Ozzie, Buster, Nizhóní, Nugget, Trumpet, Felix, Fido, Snoot, Elefonso, Zoobie the Newbie and Trunky McTrunkface.
Little Thorn entered the world last Friday at about 1:15 a.m. in the zoo’s elephant barn. Mother Rozie, 25, was in labor for just a short while, although she did carry the 200-pound little guy for 659 days — the exact number of days she carried her previous two calves.
Thorn shares the same May the 4th birth date as his father, Samson, who turned 20 on Friday. Samson was transferred to the Oregon Zoo last month to be part of that zoo’s breeding program.
The new Asian elephant calf is the fourth one born into the multi-generational herd at the ABQ BioPark Zoo. The herd also includes Rozie, 25; Rozie’s mother Alice, 45; Rozie’s other offspring, Daizy, 9, and Jazmine, 4; Samson’s brother, Albert, 19; and an unrelated female, Irene, 51.
Rhonda Saiers, the zoo’s elephant manager, told the Journal last week that the baby elephant’s primary source of nutrition for at least a year or two, will come from mother’s milk, a source so rich that the baby can gain up to two pounds a day. That means, since he was born last week, Thorn has gained about 12 pounds.
Asian elephants are indigenous to southern and southeastern Asia, from India and southern China into Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. They are considered critically endangered with no more than 50,000 still living in the wild, where their native habitats are shrinking because of human encroachment, poaching and being struck by trains and other vehicles, according to various animal and wildlife conservation sites.