The Asian elephant Sabu was moved from Cincinnati to Columbus, Ohio, a couple of years ago with the aim of mating with the female elephants there.
“This is a big step for us,” Adam Felts, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s senior curator and director of animal well-being, told The Washington Post. “Baby elephants are rare, and this showcases our ability to help the population as a whole, with sustainability over the next 100 years.”
The Asian elephant is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “red list” of threatened species, with only 30,000 to 50,000 remaining in the wild.
This is the first time the Columbus Zoo has had two elephants pregnant at the same time. Zoo officials are cautiously optimistic that the pregnancies — which normally last 18 to 22 months — will be healthy for both elephants.
Sabu was the only adult male elephant living in the female elephants’ habitat during their peak breeding periods. “The breeding was recommended through the Species Survival Plan (SSP), a program coordinated by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to maintain genetic diversity of threatened and endangered species in professional care,” the zoo said in a statement.
Columbus Zoo staff discovered the pregnancies through routine monitoring of the female elephants’ hormonal cycles, Felts said. Workers collected blood from the animals, which they tested to check the elephants’ levels of luteinizing hormone, which surge when the ovaries release an egg. The zoo was able to confirm Phoebe’s and Sunny’s pregnancies when they both missed two ovulation cycles.
Felts said the expectant mothers are in their second trimester. Sunny will give birth anywhere between May and August 2025, and Phoebe will give birth in fall 2025.
The zoo takes blood from both pregnant elephants weekly to check on hormones that signal their pregnancies are still progressing. Eventually they will get regular ultrasounds.
Felts said the zoo tries to help its elephants live in the same type of social groups as they would in the wild. In practice that means females stay together their entire lives, he said, while males leave their mothers in their early teens.
“Frankie is a good example,” he added. “Our intent is for him to stay with the herd until his mom [Phoebe] says it’s time to go. At that point, since our facility is so flexible and large, we are able to maintain two or three groups of elephants at the same time. But that’s like 10 years down the line.”
The elephants have large living spaces that include outdoor swimming pools, an indoor shower that they can activate, outdoor mud wallows, indoor sand floors, and trees for rubbing and scratching.
The zoo is expanding its outdoor habitat in anticipation of the elephant herd’s growth next year. A former rhino yard is being renovated to provide more space for the elephants. The 3,600-square-foot habitat will include a modified pool, hay nets, and a circular feeding area dubbed the “dining table” where multiple elephants can eat and socialize.
In addition to Phoebe, Sunny and Frankie, the other elephants at the zoo are Sunny’s sister Rudy, 22, and Johnson, 23. Sabu recently returned to Cincinnati after the new elephant habitat at the zoo there became ready for him.
The Columbus Zoo would like more baby elephants soon.
“With sustainability, it’s really important to have elephants produce offspring. Rudy isn’t pregnant. So we’re hoping Johnson can pick up where Sabu left off,” Felts said.
