The Smithsonian’s National Zoo, in Washington, D.C., has announced one of its elephants is pregnant, the first time a baby elephant will be born at the zoo in 25 years.
The zoo says 12-year-old Nhi Linh will welcome her first baby sometime this winter, although it’s unclear if she will deliver a boy or a girl.
“There are no words, really, to describe how excited we are to welcome a new addition here at the zoo,” Robbie Clark, assistant curator, Asian elephants and elephant manager, told "TODAY" in a story that aired on Monday.
It marks a landmark moment for Asian elephants, an endangered species with an estimated number of fewer than 50,000 living in the wild. Dr. Donald Neiffer, who heads a team of veterinarians tasked with taking of the elephant herd’s care at the zoo, says the upcoming birth is a big feat.
“This is huge, and certainly for our facility, we haven’t had a baby on the ground for quite some time,” he told "TODAY."
Nhi Linh bred with the zoo’s sole bull elephant, Spike. Doctors now focus on ensuring the baby is healthy, utilizing methods similar to what human mothers experience, including undergoing ultrasounds.
“It’s very similar,” veterinarian Dr. James Steeil told "TODAY." “The only thing is, in a human you can see the entire fetus, where we see small portions of this fetus.”
Tony Barthel and Robbie Clark serve as curators at the zoo, overseeing management of the elephant herd, a job that requires them to teach the elephants to voluntarily take part in the care they receive.
That practice helps them with Nhi Linh’s ultrasounds, including one done while "TODAY" was on hand.
“As you watch that ultrasound, Nhi Linh was being reinforced with lots of our favorite food items, and through repetition and practice, we’re allowed to get ourselves to where we need to be through that ultrasound monitoring, but that allows us to do everything from skin care, tooth care, the ultrasounds,” Clark said.
Nhi Lin and her baby are so large that pictures are needed from different angles, but even that only provides a glimpse as to what the fetus looks like.
“This fetus probably weighs somewhere between 150 and 175 pounds, and a full-term human fetus weighs seven pounds,” Steill said. “We don’t get a full elephant image at this stage of gestation.”
Still, Steill is pleased by what he saw on the ultrasound.
“Everything’s looking positive in regards to where the fetus is positioned and how it looks on ultrasound,” he said.
“Everything right now is pointing to ... we expect a normal delivery,” Neiffer said.
The zoo is also working on making sure the elephant enclosure is ready to house a baby.
“We have to think about gaps that are less than a foot wide throughout our facility, that a young newborn calf could slip through,” Clark said.
And while this impending birth is an exciting development for elephants, it also represents hope for other animals.
“The tools we’re able to develop here, and the science we’re able to do here, has direct implications to those other populations,” Barthel said.
