June 14, 2024 – 09:11
Rare baby elephants are born in a zoo in central Thailand. While the mother, 36-year-old Asian elephant Chamshuri, was pregnant, her caretakers were expecting an elephant calf. When the first calf was born, they thought the birth was over, but then the surprise came: they heard a strong sound and then noticed that the male calf's twin, a female, had also been born.
When the second elephant was born, the mother panicked, and her caretakers had to stop her from stepping on the calf. One of the caregivers was also injured during childbirth, and his leg was broken. However, he said, “I was so happy that I didn't feel pain.” By the way, elephants are revered as saints in Thailand, where a significant part of the population belongs to Buddhism.
Elephant cubs with their mother – Photograph: Manan Vatsyayana / AFP
According to the research organization Save the Elephants, the birth of twins in elephants is rare (about one percent), and it is rare for them to be of different sexes. “It's a miracle,” a vet summed up the situation to the BBC. Zoo visitors can visit the twins themselves after disinfecting their feet and hands. According to Thai custom, baby elephants are given names only one week after they are born.
He rescued Csamczuri from Park Street years ago. It became popular in Thailand in the 1980s to use elephants to entertain tourists, a practice that was banned in 2010, but there have been rare precedents since then. In Thailand, there are still more elephants used in tourism than anywhere else in the world: even though the Asian elephant is classified as an endangered species.
(BBC)
