Oregon Zoo anxiously awaits a baby elephant that could supercharge attendance

Sunday, August 17, 2008 KATY MULDOONThe Oregonian Staff
Anxiety simmers at the Oregon Zoo, and it's no wonder.

For the first time in 14 years, just as the zoo faces key decisions about its future, one of its Asian elephants -- the institution's flagship species -- is about to give birth.

If all goes well, an adorably wobbly, floppy eared calf could draw tens of thousands of extra visitors and prompt a wave of positive publicity at an opportune time: Metro, which owns the zoo, will ask voters in November to approve a $117 million bond measure to upgrade exhibits and, perhaps, buy more land for the elephants.
But as Tony Vecchio recently put it: "I am one of those people saying not to count your baby elephants before they . . . ."

Without finishing his sentence, the zoo director made his point. Elephant pregnancies seldom deliver predictability.

Stillbirths are common. Calf mortality rates run at least 30 percent, according to the zoo.

To make matters sketchier, Rose-Tu -- the last elephant born at the zoo, Aug. 31, 1994 -- is a first-time mother-to-be who never has witnessed a birth. If she delivers a healthy calf, keepers have no idea how she might react. Some inexperienced elephant mothers nurture their newborns; others neglect or kill their young.

Such an outcome might incite animal activists who campaign against captive breeding and fight to divest zoos of elephants, or push them to give the animals vastly more room to roam.

So the zoo crew plans for best-case scenarios -- and for the worst.

They expect that 7,666-pound Rose, near the end of a typical 22-month pregnancy, could deliver as early as this week or as late as Oct. 8. Tests indicate she's probably carrying a female.
Volunteers monitor her round-the-clock, watching for signs of labor. The veterinary staff draws blood daily, looking for a drop in the hormone progesterone. When it plummets, labor should start within five days.


Racing to breed


Elephants have entranced Oregonians since at least April 14, 1962, when Portland's beloved Packy arrived. All ears and wrinkles and wiry hair, 225-pound Packy was the first elephant born in North America in more than 40 years.

That year, attendance tripled.

A baby boom followed. Portland's zoo produced 27 elephant calves from the 1960s to the 1990s, more than any other North American zoo.

But like pachyderm programs nationwide, Portland's ran short of space for the burly beasts. Breeding stopped.

Zoos didn't reinvigorate their programs until a study published in 2000 delivered ominous news: Unless breeding resumed, so many Asian elephants would have died that by 2050 fewer than 20 would remain in North American zoos.

Today, programs affiliated with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums hold about 141 Asian and 150 African elephants; the Oregon Zoo's three males and three females are Asians.

Coast to coast, recent headlines trumpet breeding successes:

"Meet Li'l Miss Elephant" -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Zoo's Newest Baby Elephant Stands on Her Own Four Feet" -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Mikki is Packing a Baby Pachyderm" -- The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.

After Mikki, an African elephant, delivered the Louisville Zoo's first-ever calf in March 2007, the zoo saw something the Oregon Zoo might expect: record-breaking attendance. Oregon Zoo attendance topped 1.5 million in the fiscal year ending June 30.

When people hit the gates," said Kara Bussabarger, Louisville's public relations manager, "they say, 'Let's go see Scotty!' . . . He's the face of the zoo now."

He's the face on the Louisville telephone book, too.

When the St. Louis Zoo's calf, Maliha, first went on exhibit in 2006, among those waiting to see her were crews from ABC's "Good Morning America" and NBC's "The Today Show."

Clearly, elephants -- charismatic megafauna, as they're known -- can be good for zoos, and their offspring an even bigger plus.

Life grows richer and bonds among a herd's females tend to strengthen when a calf arrives; they all help raise the little one, as wild cow elephants do.

"It's important to the zoo from an education and conservation standpoint," said Mike Keele, Oregon Zoo deputy director and coordinator of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums' Asian Elephant Species Survival Plan.

"It allows us to see the inner workings of a herd," he said. "Most people won't be able to go to Asia or Africa to see them in the wild. That's a special thing we can provide our visitors and, hopefully, inspire them to want to take action to conserve elephants" threatened by habitat loss, poaching and extinction.

Zoos, however, have taken heavy publicity hits over elephants. While some, such as Oregon's, expand their collections, others, such as the San Francisco Zoo, hand their elephants over to sanctuaries and close inadequate exhibits.

Even much-anticipated births have caused anguish.

In January, the 40-year-old matriarch of the Fort Worth Zoo's elephant herd went into labor and died a few days later, along with her unborn calf. Veterinarians figure a torn uterus killed her. Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo lost Hansa, a 6-year-old calf, to a herpes virus last summer. And this month, that zoo's Chai, 29, suffered a miscarriage.

"I'm not allowing the staff to spend too much time or money advertising or marketing something that is so risky," Oregon Zoo's Vecchio said. "When we're comfortable that it's successful, we might do a few things . . . but I'm reluctant to jinx it."


Worrying the details


For now, zoo employees and volunteers watch, wait and worry.

"There are like 80 million things I'm worried about," said Mitch Finnegan, chief veterinarian.

Top among them: anything other than a quick, uneventful labor and delivery.

If labor goes too long, Rose-Tu's calf could die before she can deliver. If the delivery is traumatic, Rose-Tu might be too weak to care for her newborn
Before he took charge of the veterinary crew, Finnegan attended one other elephant birth: Rose's. What no one knew was that her mother, Me-Tu, carried twins, a rare condition typically fatal to mother and calves.

Me-Tu made it.

Her second calf, born about eight hours after Rose, survived only an hour.
Finnegan and his crew have studied footage of previous births. They've gathered gear -- everything from oxytocin, a medication that speeds labor, to a human breast pump for stimulating milk production.

Their most unusual medical tool: a winch mounted to a forklift, in case they need to pull the calf out of the birth canal.

Caesarean-section is not an option; an elephant apparently never has survived one. However, veterinarians have had some success with a surgery similar to an episiotomy, making room to reach inside and try to assist the calf during a difficult birth.

When Rose's time comes, her exhibit will close to the public; it could be days or longer before it reopens, depending on how the birth and bonding processes go -- eventualities impossible to predict.

Veterinarians and keepers will stay nearby but mostly out of Rose's sight, Finnegan said, "to let her do her own thing, without hovering and stressing her."

Unlike some zoos that tether cow elephants during labor and delivery, Portland's has selected to leave Rose unchained inside the barn, along with Shine and Chendra, the zoo's other cows.

Chances are, Rose will look anxious. She could quit eating or distance herself from Shine and Chendra. As contractions intensify, she might lean into walls or stretch her legs.

If all goes well, at some point later she'll bear down. Her rear legs will bend and separate. A bulge will appear below her tail as the calf descends and emerges, covered in the amniotic sac.

Rose -- or keepers if need be -- will move the sac so the calf can breathe.

Then "all hell breaks loose," said Keele, a former elephant keeper who was on duty for six Oregon Zoo births and on call for six more.

"The females should start trumpeting and roaring," welcoming the newest member of their herd.

Katy Muldoon: 503-221-8526; katymuldoon@news.oregonian.com