The team at the St. Louis Zoo knew long before setting eyes on baby Jet Saturday morning that he’d be making history. He’s the first Asian elephant born at the zoo to be conceived via artificial insemination.
“To find out that we did all that, and we were ultimately successful, is a huge relief, and we are really excited to bring in our fourth generation, Raja's grandbaby, into the herd,” said Dr. Chris Hanley, director of animal health at the zoo.
Baby Jet’s mom is Jade, the 17-year-old daughter of Raja, who was famously the first elephant born at the zoo in 1992. The sperm came from a bull named Jake who lives at the Denver Zoo.
“It's all based on genetics and what will make that population healthy and continue to be sustainable into the future,” said Tim Thier, who is curator of mammals and ungulates — hooved mammals—and River's Edge, the part of the zoo where the elephants live.
Thier explained that artificial insemination is a method zoos can use in an environment where breeding-age elephants aren’t able to connect naturally.
“In the wild, they would have family groups that are primarily females and their offspring. So the males either are on their own or they form small bachelor groups, and so they kind of wander around,” said Thier. “They'll meet up with a group of females and they may reproduce, and they kind of wander off again, too, whereas we don't have that here.”
The insemination process took several rounds before it was ultimately successful. Shipping the sperm from Denver was much simpler than delivering an entire live elephant and allowed Jade to stay with her family group throughout her pregnancy — which lasted about 22 months.
“We want to have all animals that can breed, breed as quickly as possible, just because we need to have that here,” said Thier. “By waiting and waiting and waiting, the females aren't getting pregnant — and when they have a two-year gestation, that makes it even longer. So if we wait a year to get a bull, it's three years before we actually get a calf. Having the [artificial insemination] as an option just makes things happen quickly.”
Jet’s conception and birth carry a larger significance in the world of animal care and conservation, too. The St. Louis Zoo’s Asian elephants are part of a Species Survival Plan, an effort by a network of accredited zoos and aquariums to build up the numbers of endangered species through responsible breeding programs.
There are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants in the wild.
“If something happens to all the wild elephants, we still want to have a sustainable population of elephants that could hopefully then be reintroduced to the wild,” explained Thier.
But the pace of breeding is only one consideration. Thier said breeding plans that bring two elephants physically together, allowing them to build a rapport and reproduce sexually, tend to be more successful. That’s why plans are in the works to welcome a male elephant from Oregon and move Raja to a zoo in Columbus, Ohio, sometime next year.
“It's kind of like a domino effect where, you know, you move animal A to location A, animal B to location B,” he said. “As those moves happen, then the breeding will pick up again, and overall, the population then becomes more sustainable.”
Male elephants typically reach sexual maturity between age 8 and 13. Jet will also be part of the Species Survival Plan, though the zoo says it’s too early to know anything about future moves.
Jade's pregnancy and birth
Besides her unique conception, caretakers say Jade’s pregnancy was largely uneventful.
She was offered daily checkups, blood draws and ultrasounds to assess her physical shape, analyze hormone levels and check the state of her cervix. Beginning about two days before his birth, the zoo’s endocrinologist, Dr. Corrine Kozlowski, determined that Jade’s progesterone levels started to drop and that labor would begin soon. The animal health team also observed her cervix beginning to relax Friday morning, and she gave birth early Saturday.
Hanley said the goal had always been a quick display of Jade’s natural instincts.
“Best-case scenario is, you know, before we can even think about it, she delivers her calf and everything's OK,” he said in a conversation just before Jade’s labor began.
Caretakers say Jet started to nurse quickly, and Jade seems to be handling feeding well. Now Jade and Jet will spend time together in the Elephant Management Facility, an off-view building located on the zoo grounds.
Hanley says caretakers will be keeping a close eye from a respectful distance.
“There's a lot of check-ins and a lot of conversations,” he said, “but we also want to make sure that mom, especially when it's a first-time mom like Jade, has a chance to bond with the baby. That's so critical in any species.”
The zoo is not sharing many details about when Jet might make his public debut. Weather and temperatures will be a factor, but the call will largely depend on how mother and calf are progressing.
“We want the public to get to meet this baby, but we're going to, we're going to take our time and make sure the baby is ready to meet the public,” said Hanley.
