This week we are celebrating Asian elephant Kanlaya's 4th birthday at Taronga Western Plains Zoo.
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She was born on 14 June 2018, weighing roughly 100 kilograms. She now weighs an incredible 1500kg!
The birth of Kanlaya was a huge milestone for our conservation breeding program and for the Australasian region.
Her birth would not have been possible without a successful collaboration with Perth Zoo involving artificial insemination. This success highlights the importance of collaborating with other organisations to ensure a genetically diverse population for Asian Elephants in the Australasian region.
ALSO MAKING NEWS:
Kanlaya has always been extremely wary of her environment. Every step she takes is small as she adjusts to anything new, but once she warms up her playful and sweet personality shines through.
It also takes some time for new keepers to work around Kanlaya as she can be quite timid.
As she ages she is growing into herself and becoming more confident.
It's amazing for keepers to observe when she decides to lead the other elephant females around in the paddocks, especially considering how timid she once was.
Kanlaya still displays some dependency towards her mum Porntip, but mostly during food time, where she tries to steal most of mum's food.
The times in which we see Kanlaya flourish is with social days with our male elephants, known as bulls. She is extremely playful and confident around bulls Pathi Harn and Sabai, and will often stalk them throughout the day trying to keep up.
She is slowly growing more confident around our eldest bull Gung, who is often observed initiating play by laying down for Kanlaya, although she is still a little unsure how to respond.
To give you a size comparison, Gung weighs 4900kg.
Although she may not interact in play behaviour with Gung yet, she is learning critical natural behavioural skills such as navigating around a bull of Gung's size, breeding behaviour between Gung and the other females and critical social cues.
With the introduction of new female Anjalee, who arrived in April from Auckland Zoo, Kanlaya instantly bonded with her and the two have become great companions. Within the first day of introductions, Anjalee had taken on Aunty duty, standing over Kanlaya as she slept.
Both have enjoyed many days swimming, wallowing, foraging and sleeping in the same sand bed together at night.
This introduction has shown the impact that social opportunities with the different bulls has had on Kanlaya, as she showed us all her confidence interacting with an elephant she had never met before.
Kanlaya has had a huge positive impact on the elephant program and will continue to in the future as she plays a critical role in the next generation.
From my perspective as one of the elephant keepers in the team, I was fortunate enough to see the birth of Kanlaya and I have loved every minute of seeing her flourish and the opportunity to play a key role in her development.