Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Asian Elephant

"Shortly, the Calgary Zoo is moving its three female Asian elephants — Kamala, Swarna and Maharani — to the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C.. The lone male Asian elephant, Spike, was relocated to a Florida Zoo last fall. (Note: not sure which adult female elephants are in my old photo, but the baby was baby Malti, who very sadly died a few years ago, when just a matter of months old). This photo was taken on 23 March 2008. They will be reunited with a couple of elephants that two of them lived with at an orphanage in Sri Lanka more than 30 years ago. Donald Moore, an official with Smithsonian's, says they'll be studying them to see if the elephants remember each other and how they'll react. "We think they'll remember each other, and we are in conversation about how to study that along with some university researchers in psychology and communications," he said. "So it's going to be a very exciting time for these elephants in Washington, D.C." Zoo officials said they did an extensive international search and this accredited facility met their stringent criteria to take care of the three female elephants. Listen to an interview with Calgary Zoo curator Colleen Baird about the move: www.cbc.ca/1.1323590 The move was made in the best interest of the animals and not because of recent flood damage (i.e. June 2013) to the zoo, according to officials. The decision to move the animals was made last April, before the floods, because the island that houses the zoo cannot accommodate a large herd, and elephant welfare is better served by being part of a larger social group." This is a link to a wonderful, informative pdf article on the Calgary Zoo elephants in the Calgary Zoo magazine. Tells you about the individual personalities of these amazing animals and their history: www.calgaryzoo.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Wildlife_Sprin... This photo is in the following SET: CALGARY ZOO www.flickr.com/photos/annkelliott/sets/72157632014191699/

Lol, a change from flowers, birds and fungi! Caught this Asian Elephant at the Calgary Zoo having a dust bath a couple of days ago. I've just read some interesting information on the Calgary Zoo website, link below. "Asian elephants differ from their African cousins in that they have smaller ears, a less sloped back, only one 'finger' on their trunk, and the hind foot has 4 nails (rather than 3). Many think that the difference exists in their tusks (which are actually modified incisor teeth), since female Asian elephants appear not to have tusks. This is not true as female Asian elephants have tiny tusks under their trunk called tushes. It is also a misconception that all males have tusks because only about 20% of bulls actually do. These males are colloquially known as 'tuskers'. Asian elephants rank as one of the smartest animals in the world and are capable of self-recognition. They live in herds of all females and their offspring is led by an elderly female called the matriarch. The females are usually related because females never leave the group that they are born into. Males get a little too rowdy for their parents during their teenage years. These teenage years roughly coincide with ours (12-14) because elephants have a similar lifespan of about 70 years. There is a long history of elephants being hunted by humanity for meat, ivory, and domestication. The ivory trade continues to decimate wild populations, while their habitat is being destroyed for agriculture. Because of these factors, elephants have already disappeared from much of their former range (such as China)." www.calgaryzoo.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=...

Baby Malti was outside enjoying some sunshine when I was at the Zoo recently. Had to smile when I saw that she had learned how to "suck up" some sawdust and spray it over her back. She is the cutest thing!

It was quite cold today, even though fairly sunny, but baby Malti, an Asian Elephant at the Calgary Zoo, had her playtime with her keepers indoors. It was quite amusing to see her try to walk (very carefully!) down a flight of three steps. I went to the Calgary Zoo for the afternoon. I wanted to test out my new little point-and-shoot camera and compare similar photos taken recently with my old, half-working Canon S3 IS and very old Olympus C750 UZ. I found the Panasonic DMC-FZ18 a delightful camera to use!! It is light-weight, comfy and if I can use it, then anyone could. I kept it on Intelligent Auto to test out the camera and it seems to have worked reasonably well in various light conditions. I did use flash for some of my indoor shots.

Another photo of baby Malti, the newest member of the Asian Elephant family at the Calgary Zoo.

Here is baby Malti again at the Calgary Zoo. She must be something like 9 weeks old now - this photo was taken when she was 7-8 weeks old. So cute.

I couldn't get a decent shot of the animal because of the wide, metal fence, so decided I'd go just for the foot! No sign of Malti, the new baby Asian Elephant, but I suspect that they were keeping her inside, seeing as we had a fall of snow the previous night and it was rather chilly.

Well done, Spike, making it into the Guinness Book of World Records! Spike was born in July 1981 in Florida but has been at the Calgary Zoo for years. "The world's largest dental caps measure 50 cm (19 in) long, 13 cm (5 in) in diameter and weigh 13 kg (28 lb) each. They were fixed onto a pair of cracked tusks belonging to Spike, a resident Asian elephant, at the Calgary Zoo, Alberta, Canada during a 3 hour 30 minute operation on July 4, 2002. The stainless steel caps were designed and manufactured by the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology with metal donated by Corus Steel and adhesive by 3M (all Canada)." From Wikipedia.