Maryland Zoo staff were ecstatic and a little tired Thursday as they announced the healthy birth of a 290-pound, 42-inch-tall baby boy to their African elephant Felix Wednesday night.
That?s big, even for an elephant, said Mike McClure, curator and elephant manager.
“It?s tall for an elephant baby and he?s heavy,” McClure said. “Felix is a a petite elephant, and the fact she was able to pass a 290-pound calf is very impressive.”
Right now, the boy is bonding with his mom and staying warm inside the elephant house. He will come out to greet visitors after the weather warms and zookeepers feel confident the cheering crowds won?t scare him.
The boy doesn?t have a name yet, and you might get a chance to participate in naming him, said Don Hutchinson, interim Zoo president. “We were expecting a girl. We had a lot of suggestions for names for females, but we had a male birth last night.”
The boy was standing within 30 minutes of being born, McClure said. “He sort of started to waddle away from felix at one point and she reached out and put her trunk around him and just pulled him back to her.”
