This is the third offspring of the mother animal, the 21-year old Kwanza, and her mate, the 29-year old Jack, and after a bull born in 2015 and an elephant cow born in 2018, another bull calf was born.
The specialists of our park expected the baby elephant to arrive at the beginning of September, but Kwanza, the mother elephant, "gifted" us almost exactly to the day on the twenty-fifth birthday of our Zoo.
Kwanza's 22-month pregnancy is continuously examined by our veterinarians and the calf's development was monitored with ultrasound examinations and blood sampling.
During the stock check on Monday morning, our caretakers noticed that the African elephant stock, which had previously numbered 4 individuals, had increased.
The little one was born without external help and is a bull calf with difficulty, but if possible, our specialists will separate it for a short time after a general veterinary examination has been performed on it.
Kwanza and her partner Jack were taken from a Swedish and an English zoo respectively as part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), and it is interesting that after the conception of the second calf, Jack avoided fulfilling the task of a breeding bull, but he did not deal with the female elephants at the Basel Zoo, so they were brought back to Nyiregyháza.
Not long after his return, the current offspring was conceived, with which the African elephant team already has 5 members.
