Gabi (elephant)
Encyclopedia
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
conceived in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
through artificial insemination. His 6-hour birth was viewed by over 350,000 people in 108 countries via live web streaming
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
on the website of the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, which coordinated the pregnancy and birth through its elephant artificial insemination program.
Background
The Asian ElephantAsian Elephant
The Asian or Asiatic elephant is the only living species of the genus Elephas and distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognized — Elephas maximus maximus from Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant or E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m....
enclosure at the zoo was constructed in 1993 with the help of Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek
Teddy Kollek
Theodor "Teddy" Kollek was mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1989...
's Jerusalem Foundation, which also raised funds to bring in female Asian elephants from Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
at a cost of $50,000 apiece. The zoo obtained its bull elephant as a 5-year-old in September 2001 from the Ramat Gan Safari. The zoo named its bull elephant "Teddy", and one of its female elephants, "Tamar", in honor of the mayor and his wife. However, attempts to mate Teddy with the female elephants did not produce a natural birth.
After years of research and in response to requests by other organizations for the zoo to take part in a trial, Dr. Gabi Eshkar, chief veterinarian of the zoo, initiated the elephant artificial insemination project. Tamar was selected for the project and her reproductive cycle was closely monitored. When the timing was right, sperm
Sperm
The term sperm is derived from the Greek word sperma and refers to the male reproductive cells. In the types of sexual reproduction known as anisogamy and oogamy, there is a marked difference in the size of the gametes with the smaller one being termed the "male" or sperm cell...
was obtained from Emmett, a bull elephant living in the Whipsnade Wild Animal Park in Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and flown to Israel on dry ice
Dry ice
Dry ice, sometimes referred to as "Cardice" or as "card ice" , is the solid form of carbon dioxide. It is used primarily as a cooling agent. Its advantages include lower temperature than that of water ice and not leaving any residue...
. The pregnancy was achieved after four tries over two years. The project was carried out in conjunction with a team from the Reproduction Management Institute for Zoo Biology and Wildlife Research of Berlin.
At age 20, Tamar was considered a high-risk pregnancy case, as elephants normally begin conceiving between the ages of 12 and 15, and this was Tamar's first pregnancy. Throughout the 21-month pregnancy, dozens of ultrasound
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is thus not separated from "normal" sound based on differences in physical properties, only the fact that humans cannot hear it. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is...
s were taken of the elephant's 1.5 metres (4.9 ft)-long reproductive system; some of these ultrasounds were published on the zoo's website to whet public interest. Physicians at the obstetrics and gynecology
Obstetrics and gynaecology
Obstetrics and gynaecology are the two surgical–medical specialties dealing with the female reproductive organs in their pregnant and non-pregnant state, respectively, and as such are often combined to form a single medical specialty and postgraduate training programme...
department of Hadassah Medical Center
Hadassah Medical Center
Hadassah Medical Center is a medical organization that operates two University hospitals at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, Israel, as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.The hospital was founded by Hadassah,...
analyzed blood samples to monitor the pregnancy and predict the onset of labor, which they pinpointed to the day.
Birth and early life
The calf, weighing in at 198 pounds (89.8 kg), was born at 6:10 a.m. on Saturday, 10 December 2005. Concerns that Tamar, who was raised in captivity, would not bond with her calf proved groundless. Right after the birth, veterinarians wrapped the newborn calf in towels and sawdust to warm him, and then handed him over to his mother, who nursed him. Zookeepers named the baby elephant after Dr. Gabi Eshkar, who had been killed in a traffic accident in 2004.
Gabi was an instant hit with zoo visitors. His playful and energetic nature made him one of the zoo's main attractions. Always on the go, his keepers found him hard to pin down for weigh-ins, and he often acted up while the other elephants were going about their daily routine. On 15 December 2006 the zoo held a first-birthday party for Gabi, complete with balloons and presents for visitors and a 100 kilograms (220.5 lb) birthday cake
Birthday cake
The birthday cake has been an integral part of the birthday celebrations in Western cultures since the middle of the 19th century. Certain rituals and traditions, such as singing of birthday songs, associated with birthday cakes are common to many Western cultures. The Western tradition of adding...
for Gabi prepared by professional chefs at the Tadmor School for Hotel Management.
Move to Turkey
Gabi lived in the same enclosure with his mother Tamar and the zoo's three other female elephants for nearly 5 years. By 2010, however, Gabi was growing increasingly aggressive and anti-social — typical behavior for a 5-year-old bull elephant. The zoo decided to send him to the GaziantepGaziantep
Gaziantep , Ottoman Turkish: Ayintab) previously and still informally called Antep; ʻayn tāb is a city in southeast Turkey and amongst the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. The city is located 185 kilometres northeast of Adana and 127 kilometres by road north of Aleppo, Syria...
Zoo in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, where it is hoped he will sire his own offspring and thereby increase the number of Asian elephants in captivity.
For several months before the move, zookeepers trained Gabi to enter and remain inside the special cage built for the sea voyage. On Sunday night, 3 October 2010, Gabi was sent by truck to the Port of Haifa
Port of Haifa
The Port of Haifa is the largest of Israel's three major international seaports, which include the Port of Ashdod, and the Port of Eilat. It has a natural deep water harbor which operates all year long, and serves both passenger and merchant ships. It is one of the largest ports in the eastern...
, where he was joined by two other Asian Elephants, a hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
, zebra
Zebra
Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...
s and several lemur
Lemur
Lemurs are a clade of strepsirrhine primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. They are named after the lemures of Roman mythology due to the ghostly vocalizations, reflective eyes, and the nocturnal habits of some species...
s from the Ramat Gan Safari. On October 4, the entire group was shipped to Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. The animals arrived the next day and were sent by truck to Gaziantep. Gabi and the other two elephants are the first elephants at the Gaziantep Zoo.