U.S.A.
Page 8 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
August 20, 2018
Newborn elephant at Houston Zoo welcomed, appears thriving
By Alex Stuckey
Houston Chronicle
OUSTON — Tilly reached her
wrinkly trunk through the steel
cables of the Houston Zoo’s
elephant enclosure on a recent morning,
wiggling it side-to-side as if waving hello to
the gathering crowd of visitors.
The Houston Chronicle reported that
just a few feet and a couple of fences stood
between the six-week-old elephant and a
little boy of about seven who, at the sight of
her flopping trunk, waved back furiously.
“Hi baby elephant!” he shouted to the
about 500-pound pachyderm.
Tilly wasn’t actually waving, she just
lacks the muscle control to hold her long
snout steady. But those facts certainly
didn’t matter to the excited boy, whose
mother snapped photos of the encounter.
Tilly is the second Asian elephant calf
born at the Houston Zoo in as many years
— a major feat for zoo personnel in an era
where just two to four elephants are born
in captivity across the country every year.
Tilly, for example, is one of only two
elephants born in captivity in the U.S. this
year, according to Absolut Elephant, the
oldest and largest database of elephants
worldwide.
“To have two calves born in back-to-back
years is a great accomplishment,” said
Aaron Halling, a Houston Zoo elephant
keeper. “This is special. It’s just an
awesome feeling.”
The zoo’s herd now stands strong at 10,
including Thai, a 12,000-pound bull who
fathered both Tilly and her older sister,
Joy, now one.
The Houston Zoo’s elephant population
growth stands in stark contrast to many
other zoos across the nation, where
officials have been forced to close their
exhibits due to lack of space.
In fact, instead of shuttering their
exhibit, Houston has doubled its elephant
enclosure to 3.5 acres, adding in 2017 a
7,000-square-foot barn specifically for the
male elephants, 75,000 square feet of yard,
and a 160,000-gallon, 12-foot-deep pool.
But that’s not all the zoo is doing to help
the animals, which have been on the
endangered species list under the U.S.
Endangered Species Act since 1976.
Houston Zoo officials have spent about a
decade working with conservation
partners in Borneo to protect the Asian
island’s 1,500 elephants from extinction.
Zoo keepers also have recently been in
communication with elephant conserva-
H
tionists in Laos, hoping to start a program
there.
“The health of the forest is in many ways
connected to healthy elephant popula-
tions,” said Peter Riger, the Houston Zoo’s
vice president of conservation.
“Their need for protected areas and
migration corridors literally protects
hundreds
of
species,
including
amphibians, insects, mammals, birds, and
many others,” Riger said. “In turn, the
health of the landscape supports human
communities in their livelihoods.”
As Tilly posed at the fence line for her
adoring fans, Joy came plodding across the
yard to share some sisterly cuddle time
with the newborn.
Joy has a different mom, but she has
accepted Tilly as a full-blood sibling — a
common occurrence in wild elephant
herds, Halling said.
When a baby elephant is born in the
wild, it is raised and protected by the
entire herd, led by a matriarch. Because
elephants are social creatures, they
depend on those interactions to survive,
according to the Defenders of Wildlife, a
Washington,
D.C.-based
nonprofit
conservation organization.
This family structure is one of the
reasons the Association of Zoos and
Aquariums created a rule requiring
accredited zoos to have more than one
elephant — at least three females (or the
space to hold them), two males, or three of
mixed gender — on exhibit.
The association’s requirements also
force zoos to create more space for the
animals. There isn’t an exact acreage
amount requirement per pachyderm, but
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the rules stipulate that there must be
enough space and “environmental
complexity” to stimulate behaviors,
including social interactions, that would
happen in the wild.
“If the elephants are healthy and
socially adapted, then whatever is being
provided meets the standard,” according to
the regulations.
Since those requirements went into
place about eight years ago, the
association has seen a decrease in the
number of zoos with elephants. Only 32
facilities had Asian elephants and 37
facilities
had
African
elephants,
association data shows, compared to 2011
when 41 institutions had Asian elephants
and 42 institutions had African elephants.
In Houston, the 10-member herd has 3.5
acres at their disposal. There are multiple
water features where they can play and
cool off and an abundance of toys. It’s not
uncommon to see Joy dragging a tire
across the yard with her foot, enticing her
older siblings to play.
Things appear to be good for elephants
at the Houston Zoo now, but keepers have,
in the past, had their share of issues with
the enormous animals.
Between 2000 and 2008, three young
elephants died of EEHV (elephant
endotheliotropic herpesvirus), a herpes
virus afflicting the animals across the
globe. Elephants with EEHV become
lethargic and lose their appetite. Their
head starts to swell and they become lame.
The disease is a problem for young Asian
elephants both in captivity and in the wild.
It can be treated, but it has an 85 percent
mortality rate, according to Ethos
Veterinary Health, which provides
specialty and emergency care for animals
in 14 locations across the country.
Houston Zoo vets have been working
with Paul Ling, associate professor of
virology and microbiology at Baylor
College of Medicine, since 2009 to study
this disease. The protocol they’ve
developed to diagnose, monitor, and treat
the disease is used all over the world.
Houston Zoo officials could have started
an Asian elephant conservation project in
India. They could made inroads in
Thailand. They could have saved the
elephants in Laos. Instead, they picked
Borneo, an island near Malaysia where
about 1,500 Asian elephants roamed.
The zoo honed its Asian elephant effort
in on Borneo about a decade ago, Riger
said, because they only have about
$100,000 each year to play with, money
raised through ticket sales and special
events at the zoo. By focusing on one
region, they can really effect change, he
added.
The 287,000 square-mile island of
Borneo made sense because the zoo
already had contacts there, through
Orangutan and carnivore conservation
efforts that began in 2004. The zoo tries to
WELCOME, TILLY. This July 30, 2018 photo
shows a baby elephant named Tilly at the Houston
Zoo in Houston. Tilly is the second Asian elephant
calf born at the Houston Zoo in as many years, a ma-
jor feat for zoo personnel in an era where just two to
four elephants are born in captivity across the country
every year. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via
AP)
support one conservation program per
animal species on exhibit.
And the Asian elephant is in desperate
need of help. At the start of the 20th
century, about 100,000 Asian elephants
roamed the wild. Today, that number has
decreased by at least 50 percent and it
continues to decline, according to the
World Wildlife Fund.
Like their larger counterparts the
African elephant, Asian elephants have
been hunted for centuries for their tusks,
which are used for ivory carving and
jewelry making. But now, one of the
biggest threats to Asian elephants is loss of
habitat caused by population growth and
increased use of their land for agricultural
uses.
Asian elephants are migratory and
follow the same land-to-water routes for
decades. But as Borneo’s population has
increased — the most recent count was
about 18 million people — the elephants’
routes have increasingly been interrupted
by fences, plantations, or homes, often
resulting in the destruction of crops and
personal goods. Islanders shoot or poison
the elephants, Riger said.
But by teaming up with conservation
partners on the ground in Borneo, such as
Hutan, a conservation organization, he
added, the zoo has been able to turn
around that trend.
“When you are a local villager and you
see your crop completely destroyed
overnight, you will not be inspired to save
the elephants,” Dr. Marc Ancrenaz,
scientific director for Malaysia-based
Hutan, said in a statement.
“Elephants need forests to survive, and
people need to convert the forest into other
types of land uses, such as agriculture, to
survive, hence the conflict,” he said. “If we
can’t make peace there, extinction is
inevitable.”
There is now a hotline landowners can
call when an elephant herd stampedes into
places it shouldn’t. And Houston Zoo
personnel are developing plans to help
island residents understand where to put
electric fences, both to keep elephants out
of their crops and to help direct the
elephants onto different migratory paths.
For the most part, Riger said Borneo
residents are open to these changes.
They’ve been living alongside these
elephants for centuries, he added, but
human-elephant conflicts have just
recently become a problem.
“It’s not that people are against having
elephants,” Riger said. “But elephants
that are taking up plantation crops are the
ones causing problems.”
Millions in limbo as nativist
anger roils Indian state
Continued from page 5
So if those people are given work permits,
minus political rights, they could be very
valuable in Assam,” said Nani Gopal
Mahanta, an Assam-based political
analyst.
But he defends the survey: “It’s a
question of sovereignty, it’s a question of
the security of this country.”
Officials insist that the process will be
open and trustworthy.
“It’s going to be a fair procedure,” Hajela,
the project coordinator, said. “We will
ensure that no genuine citizen gets left
out, and at the point in time, ensuring that
the ineligibles don’t find their names
there.”
