Colchester: zoo sadness over elephant baby (From Gazette)

Colchester: zoo sadness over elephant baby

5:00pm Thursday 10th April 2008

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FOLLOWING weeks of anguish Colchester Zoo has announced they are no longer hopeful that Zola, the African elephant, will give birth successfully.

The zoo's 25 year-old elephant became pregnant for a second time after mating with Colchester Zoo's bull, Tembo, but keepers remained cautious after Zola's previous pregnancy ended without success in 2003.

In recent weeks keepers had been keeping a 24-hour watch on the pregnant elephant in the hope of being on hand to assist her if she went into labour, but after her expected due date at the end of February came and went, it soon became clear things were not looking good.

By running various tests it has now been possible to ascertain the placenta is no longer producing progesterone, which sadly means the calf has died.

This advanced research has been made possible by Dr Ann-Kathrin Oerke from the department of Reproductive Biology at the German Primate Centre in Gottingen, Germany.

Weekly urine hormone and blood progesterone monitoring will be continued to provide information in furthering the understanding of pregnancy in elephants and weekly blood analysis will also monitor Zola's health status.

Anthony Tropeano, the zoo's director, said: "We are desperately sad that after such a long wait we have had to presume that Zola has lost her calf.

"Zola has remained calm and happy throughout her pregnancy, and we were all hopeful that this time round there could be a successful outcome for her."

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