Sunday, January 24, 2010

Elephant gives birth at Australian Zoo

It was a birth straight out of the textbooks for Melbourne Zoo's first baby elephant - and mother and daughter are doing fine.

The overdue and long-awaited delivery came at 1.10am on Saturday when the 22-month pregnant Asian elephant Dokkoon finally gave up her treasure after four hours of labour - a 110kg baby female.

"This baby is as cute as you can imagine," said the elephant curator Jan Steele, who has not had much sleep in the past 48 hours.



The new calf was full of beans the moment she sucked in her first breath, throwing her tiny trunk around and anxious to take those first steps.

Dokkoon's keepers, who had been monitoring the birth outside the enclosure, lent a helping hand putting a makeshift harness under the belly of the baby to give her more assurance as she tried to walk.

The other members of the elephant herd were on hand to witness the birth, a tactic the zoo hopes will make things a little easier for another elephant, Kulab, who is expecting in August.

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