Zoo’s new arrival meets the public

Richard Collins on the growing herd at the purpose-built elephant enclosure in Dublin Zoo

YASMIN woke at 4am on February 17. Her daughter, sister and nine-month-old niece were asleep but the commotion soon woke them. Elephants give birth at night, so Gerry Creighton and his team at Dublin Zoo use infrared TV cameras to keep an eye on them. Labour can continue for hours but Yasmin’s baby arrived 30 minutes after the waters broke. The little calf was on his feet an hour later. Aunt Bernhardine acted as midwife, standing over the new arrival lest the two boisterous youngsters bump into him in their excitement. Mother and aunt removed the afterbirth and cleaned the baby with their trunks.

The birth came earlier than expected but staff had ample warning, thanks to a South American insect. Taking blood samples to check hormone levels is not easy; elephants, just like people, hate needles. Although Charles Darwin was bitten by a triatomid bug in South America and suffered from Chagas disease for the rest of his life, these insects are not all bad; they provide elephant blood samples in Dublin. A larva is placed on the patient’s back where it gorges itself on blood. A local anaesthetic, administered with its proboscis, prevents the victim from feeling pain. When the bug is removed, the blood is extracted from it and the insect returned, unharmed, to its box.