Michelle Butterfield, Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, October 31, 2008According to officials at the Calgary Zoo, one of the youngest animals in the zoo family has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease.
Baby elephant Malti was diagnosed with elephant herpesvirus today, and veterinarians and zoo keepers have dedicated around-the-clock medical care to the young calf.
"There's no doubt that this is a very critical situation," said zoo veterinarians Sandie Black and Doug Whiteside in a press release about the young calf, who is in critical condition.
According to the doctors, only four elephants have survived the illness and each time depended on early treatment. Earlier this week Malti began showing flu-like symptoms. Vets started her on an an anti-viral treatment right away and sent her blood tests for analysis.
"It's heartbreaking. Everybody loves her and had worked very hard to get her through her first year. It's pretty devastating," said Calgary Zoo spokeswoman Laurie Herron.
Elephant herpesvirus is responsible for the death of nearly a dozen North American elephants in the past 20 years.
Although the survival rate is poor, there is minimal risk to adult elephants. As well, there have never been any evidence to suggest the virus could transfer to humans or other species.
Courtesy of Mary Ann
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8 comments:
She has a great chance of making it. The adults have almost no chance of becoming ill, and more then likely one of them gave it to the calf. They are finding more and more that adults can carry the virus and never have effects from it. I think the statistic of only four surviving is low, I know of two that beat it personally, and they were not in zoos.
Sorry to say, Malti didn't make it. It is always sad to see an Elephant pass on, but it is part of life. She will be missed.
Sara,
Very sorry to hear that. I am sure all are down about it. But we learn from any bad incident with an animal, and thus are able to do more for the next generation. Email me at wburck3@aol.com I would like to know more. Thank you
Wade
Wade, I'm very sorry to hear this. Please let us know if you find out more. I'm sure that the mother is devastated.
Mary Ann
Anonymous Zoo and Aquarium Visitor,
Send me information about your site and I will be glad to post it or link to it.
Regards,
Wade
That sucks,
My deepest sympathies to the keepers at the Calgary Zoo.
The Calgary Zoo has had a number of baby elephant fatalities, if I'm not mistaken. Actually this is the second one I've heard of and I think the infant mortality for baby elephants in captivity is 50%. Calgary Zoo has a special kind of elephant. They are Sri Lankan elephants. I guess they want to keep them subspecifically purebred so they have artificially inseminated an elephant cow on at least one occasion, at Calgary Zoo, from a bull at the National Zoo, which belongs to the same subspecies. I think the bull in Washington D.C. was a gift for Ronald Reagan from Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan elephants have patches of gilded looking skin, like they've been spray painted gold, in spots. The males rarely have tusks because the ones which did have tusks were usually killed for the ivory, leaving only males without tusks to carry on the population.
The Calgary Zoo is importing four gorillas from the Bronx Zoo, two males and two females, which will double their gorilla population. They've had a couple of gorilla deaths.
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