Cue the “Baby Elephant Walk” music, as the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium now has a 215-pound calf.
On July 23, Sunny the Asian elephant delivered a healthy, female elephant calf, the Columbus Zoo announced on its Facebook page. The zoo said that its elephant care team had been “proactively training for this moment for months” given it had two pregnant female elephants.
Sunny handled the birth “like a champ” and is adapting well to her first time role as a mother, the zoo said in its announcement. The baby has not yet been named.
“Sunny is already showing strong maternal instincts, nurturing her calf with attentiveness and care,” the zoo said. “To give them time to rest and focus on bonding, they are currently behind the scenes and not yet viewable to the public.”
The zoo said that the calf already has a sizable fan base as it learns to walk and use its trunk.
The new addition makes this the sixth elephant in the care of the zoo. Its mother, Sunny, as well as Johnson, Rudy, and Frankie are part of the herd. The baby’s father, Sabu, resides at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.
In the fall, the herd is expected to be joined by another calf when Phoebe the elephant gives birth.
The birth of Sunny’s calf is part of a push by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums in recent years to “confront the sustainability crisis” of elephants living in zoos across America.
Reporter Shahid Meighan can be reached at smeighan@dispatch.com, at ShahidMeighan on X, and at shahidthereporter.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Zoo welcomes 215-pound female elephant calf into the herd
Reporting by Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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