Second African Elephant Calf Born at Beekse Bergen in a Month

Hilvarenbeek, December 7, 2023 – Less than a month after the birth of the first African elephant calf, a second calf was born at Safari Park Beekse Bergen. The healthy female named Ajabu was born on Sunday evening around 11:15 p.m.

Head zookeeper Yvonne Vogels: “African elephants are pregnant for an average of 22 months. With this knowledge, we expected the calf sometime in January. However, the calf was born last Sunday evening at 20 months. So the arrival was a surprise for us, but we are very happy that Ajabu was born healthy!”

The birth was noticed by chance, because Vogels checked the webcam on Sunday evening to see if everything was okay with the herd. Vogels: “I regularly use a webcam to check whether the herd is doing well. With the arrival of Mosi, we are keeping an extra close eye on everything. On Sunday evening I looked at the webcam and I thought that little Mosi was a bit unsteady on her legs. Not much later I saw Mosi and the youngest addition on screen: the shaky elephant was just taking her first steps!”

Slow start

Upon arrival at the stable, Yvonne noticed that the little one needed a little more time for a good start. Vogels: “The young elephant looked a bit awkward and the female elephants from the herd watched it from a distance. Fortunately, the calf is healthy, but she needed extra time in the first few days to get used to it. The animal care team has bonding between herd and young is stimulated. It will remain exciting in the coming weeks, but for now it all looks good!”

Contribution

Beekse Bergen contributes to the protection of the African elephant in two ways through the European management program and through the support of the Wildlife Foundation.

The management program ensures that a healthy reserve population of this species is created. Elephant bull Yambo came to Hilvarenbeek from Spain for the management program in 2021. Not much later, the caregivers saw the first mating.

More space

Through the Wildlife Foundation, the nature conservation organization Save the Elephants is supported with the Northern Corridors Project. Vogels: “This year we have already made a fruitful contribution to the healthy reserve population, but we also want to give something back to elephants in the wild. The elephant population in Africa is doing better and better. However, the population of Africa is also growing and that means causes the elephants’ habitat to become fragmented.”

The project will ensure that natural parks are connected with each other with a corridor. The Wildlife Foundation will raise 57,000 euros for this project. More than half of this amount will be collected through an adoption plan for the young elephants. The rest of the amount will be supplemented with other initiatives.

Images credit to Beekse Bergen/Mariska Vermij – van Dijk.

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