It was a double birthday celebration earlier today (Sept. 26, 2019) at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, as animal care staff and volunteers celebrated the first birthday of elephant calf Mkhaya, nicknamed “Kaia,” while her older brother Inhlonipho, or “Neepo,” turned 8. Safari Park keepers decorated the elephants’ habitat with special enrichment items, including birthday cakes made of ice and fruit by the Safari Park’s nutrition team, paper streamers and decorated boxes made by the Safari Park’s volunteers and filled with hay and produce by keepers, and fresh-cut tree limbs (browse) provided by the Safari Park’s horticulture team.
“We are excited to celebrate Kaia’s first birthday and her brother Neepo’s eighth birthday today,” said Mindy Albright, lead elephant keeper, San Diego Zoo Safari Park. “The keeper team, our nutrition team, horticulture team and the Safari Park volunteers have provided some fun enrichment for Kaia and Neepo, and the entire herd gets to enjoy the party.”
Safari Park guests watched as the birthday girl, her brother and other members of their herd—including another 1-year-old elephant calf, Umzuli-zuli or “Zuli”, who turned 1 on Aug. 12—ran into the habitat and immediately started foraging for the special treats. The elephants opened boxes with their trunks or smashed with them with their feet, eating the alfalfa and treats such as cut-up watermelon, cucumber, yams, carrots and celery. Kaia seemed to enjoy using her trunk to find pieces of yams and carrots hidden in alfalfa, while Neepo used his foot to smash Kaia’s birthday cake and enjoyed pieces of the icy treat before moving to his own cake—and eating it, too. Enriching experiences like these are important for elephants, as they keep the animals stimulated and active, allowing them to use their natural behaviors.
The Safari Park is home to nine elephants—three adult females, and six calves and sub-adults ranging from 1 to 13 years old. African elephants are currently listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and face many threats in their native habitats, including habitat loss and fragmentation, conflicts between humans and elephants, and poaching for their tusks, hide and bushmeat.
Guests can visit Kaia, Neepo and the rest of their herd at their home in Elephant Valley at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, or watch them on Elephant Cam. October is Kids Free month presented by Mission Fed. During the entire month of October, kids 11 years of age and younger receive free admission at both the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, with special activities scheduled every weekend. For more information, visit zoo.sandiegozoo.org/kidsfree.
At the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, more than 1 million guests each year see animals in herds of mixed species, in expansive habitats. Safari tours offer savanna views of African and Asian animals, trails take visitors on treks to experience Australian and North American habitats—plus, there are opportunities for up-close encounters and unique behind-the-scenes perspectives. Known for its leadership in rhino conservation, the Safari Park is home to the Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center, which is devoted to groundbreaking work to bring back the northern white rhino. As visitors discover the rare and endangered species at the Safari Park, they are directly contributing, through admission and on-grounds sales, to the efforts of San Diego Zoo Global, an international nonprofit conservation organization that works to fight extinction through recovery efforts for plants and animals worldwide. To learn more, visit sdzsafaripark.org, or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram orYouTube.
Happy birthday to Kaia and Neepo!
I don’t know where everybody posts anymore. I feel so left out.
A very big “thank you” to the person(s) who cleaned (or whatever) the cam-lens! Wonderful sharp pictures and color now! Especially yesterday evening when you could see the ele footprints in the dust and all Ndula’s wrinkles! And the contrast between her being mostly-brown from dusting and little Zuli mostly-grey. (He looked so tiny next to his mum, he really IS still just a baby.)
Thank you, Blog Monitor for the quick response and reassurance 😊 You are AWESOME ✨Also, thank you to esampu for telling us about the pedometer. We all know the keepers and ellies have 100 % trust relationship. They are loving family to each other. That’s why we love watching so SD ellies so much-One Big Happy Herd and we do have great respect for the keepers, don’t we? We must not forget about volunteers as well who are truly the great team to make the magic happens! They are the ones who prepare yummy food for hungry ellies every day. ( Yay for Zuli and Kaia both have gotten up to more than 1000 pounds, well fed indeed 😋) Plus, they did organising the ellies birthday party! Behind the scenes. So many hay boxes, colourfully painted. I saw some of them were done very artistically though how quickly they got smashed into pieces! 🥳 And specially prepared veggies mixed hay and frozen cakes for them! What fabulous enrichment they made for them! Great for us to see the ellies enjoying it all so much. Even more, the chalk drawing of Zuli and Kaia ( Thanks to Jill for the heads up:-) as well as the birthday cake on the stone shelter is absolutely fantastic! As Midwest fan mentioned:-), I was delighted to know that they were all done by the volunteers—Enrichment for Ellies, Everyday! To be able to see that on the cam is enrichment for our lives as well. I can’t thank you enough to everyone who makes our ellies happy everyday. And cheers to the cam operators for your great works! Our dearest Blog Monitor for letting us meet up here! Thank you all so much.
A big trunk hug to Lana in the East❤️🐝xoxo Thank you for responding to me and sharing the story about Moose;-) I agree with everything you’ve said about this amazing elephant herd. Now, I’ll go and watch our ellies what they are up to!
Love from one of Escondido Elephants-Enthusiast (EEE)
Marula😁🐘🎶
Thank you so much, dear Monitor! Especially for “getting back to us” with the answer so quickly!
Thank you Blog Monitor!
You teach us something every time.
The anklets on are for training purposes. The keepers want me to convey that everyone is just fine! We have in the past placed accelerometers on the elephants to gather data on movement, so this helps gets them used to this sensation (for those that haven’t worn them before) Also, if they did need to be restrained/sedated, etc. for a procedure, they would want the whole thing to be low stress, so getting him used to the feel of things on the ankles makes that not a “what is happening?!” situation, but just a “no biggie”—a good state to be in if one is already not feeling great (think of how stressed some pets get going to the vet…we want to avoid that). It’s a part of the husbandry training we do with all the elephants.
With a smaller herd, the keepers will be able to do a lot more husbandry training, which will benefit the elephants in the long run.
Midwest Fan, thank you SO much for telling us all about your wonderful “elephant visit” and the fascinating new information! I’m very happy that they plan to create more space for “our ellies,” I was hoping they might but I couldn’t figure out HOW they could do it, since they seem to be in the middle of the exhibits…
So is it Neepo or Nisa with the “bracelets”? I’ll have to try to see today… Platypus, I think Esampu is probably correct about pedometers or something along that line, so please try not to worry. No one needs to “chain” these elephants for anything–they cooperate beautifully with even painful things (Emanti’s empty tusk-socket needing to be irrigated, for an example, he was so good and brave even though clearly unpleasant/painful for him) from all I’ve seen, because they love and trust the Keepers, and if it’s a medical procedure that would require some kind of total immobilization, they’d surely be sedated or anaesthetized.
Hello, Marula, my busy little bee! Jan and I and East Coast and some of the other long-time viewers will all see what we can remember about Musi (besides how pesky he was with poor Umngani) to share. I’m sure we have “watchers” out there who remember him as a baby, even! That would be great to hear about! I can hardly wait for the stories! When I began watching the cam, he was always sort of “separate” from the rest of the boys, being quite a bit older, and mostly I remember him learning sparring and general “etiquette” from Msholo (and probably from Mabu, before then) or, of course, pestering Umngani. Luti worshipped the ground he walked on, and he did play with Luti occasionally, more after he’d been tutored by Msholo. And that, big as he was, Ndula fretted over him since she still considered him her “baby.” It would be interesting to see how the herd dynamic would be affected by his return. It will be interesting to see how the ladies react to ANY bull who is introduced, after some time without a bull in residence. I’m confident that whoever does come to the Park will be good-natured and gentle; SDZSP is going to be very careful about that sort of thing with their lovely breeding herd.
It looks as if we have some new and VERY interesting things to look-forward-to. Though in fact every day of ele-watching brings new and very-interesting things, some of them “once in a lifetime” it seems. We are so lucky to have the cam, the blog, and our dear Monitor! Thanks to everyone at SDZSP (and the Zoo and Global) for everything connected with the cam, as well as the cam-operators, and to the Keepers and other staff who make life as rich as they can for our Escondido herd. (Thank you to the ellies themselves! I bet if we told them, they’d nod graciously and then just get on with their daily activities, hoping for more treats and new toys and their favorite kinds of training–and being told how wonderful and beautiful and smart they are, by their loving Keepers.)
Hi, Midwest Fan! What a beautiful souvenir you’ve brought to us. I was so thrilled to read about your trip, as if you’ve taken us to the special SD tour with you😊 Wonderful and exciting! A big trunk-thank you to you. I really appreciated that you’ve given us the weights of those little munchkins, not so little anymore. In fact, they are Giant Babies! Astonishing to know that they weigh more than 1000 pounds! WOW.
Everyone must be so happy to hear that they are planning to make more space for our ellies, right? Also, I’m so eager to know more about Moose, though. (IF the top candidate of the future bull is HIM as Midwest fan mentioned:-) I’m quite a new-bee🐝here, I don’t know anything about him. I did read the SD’s 2015 article-Vus’musi’s Big Adventure Part 1-3. Very interesting. I see, he currently lives at Fresco Chafee Zoo… Do any of you know about him to share some stories with us? Maybe Lana in the East and Jan can help us? xoxo
Midwest Fan, thank you for the trip report and all the great information. I took the elephant and friends tour too and it was wonderful – I loved seeing the feisty rhino girls.
My guess is the ellies are wearing pedomoters to track how much they’re moving. They do that from time to time … I didn’t notice the bracelets, but I’ll watch for it tomorrow.
Midwest Fan
What a wonderful trip you had. So neat to hear all the stuff the keepers and volunteers did for the celebrations. If I ever
get to go there, I’ll definitely do the behind the scenes with the elephants. Nice updates on the weights and possible future on
bull coming.
I still haven’t caught the bracelets yet on Nisa.
Oh, by the way, Zuli now weighs over 1100 pounds, Kaia weighs 1007 pounds and all 3 moms weigh over 8000 pounds.
First, what does Nisa have on her ankles? Elephant pedometers?
Second, our trip to Safari Park was AWESOME! The first day we went was on a Tuesday and not much was happening with the ellies until we were about to leave, Then 4-5 tkeepers arrived by the stadium where we happened to be and did a training session with Ndula and Zuli. We were no more than 3-4 feet away from them. One of the keepers did indicate that training Zuli and Kaia were very different. I got the impression that Zuli may be more difficult as he is easily distracted. The training lasted about 30 minutes. It was so interesting to hear the keepers communicating to get the ellies moved for the training that was taking place in the various yards. I am SO impressed with the keepers. They are so good with the ellies and very passionate about what they do. Two of the keepers had Ndula playing “fetch” with a stick.
On Wednesday we went on the “Behind the Scenes-Elephants and Friends” tour. Anyone that goes to Safari Park and loves elephants must go on this. Besides the ellies we got to see Rhinos up close as they were moving them from yard to yard. The tram that we took went between the 2 ellie yards. As we were there Mama U and Kaia came up by the fence in the lower yard close to us. It was as if they wanted to see us as much as we wanted to them. We then went to a viewing area that is between the 2 yards and kind of high up so you could see everything. We had time left over so our guide took us into one of the barns in the upper yard where we got to see the “toys” and enrichment boxes. These felt like they are made of fiberglass. And lo and behold, Ndula and Zuli were at the end of another training session at the bars of the barn. We could get really close, but not to close. Many leftover treats (fruits and vegetables) were placed on the floor for them to finish off. Ndula didn’t finish hers and walked away, so guess who had to finish them off—Zuli of course. The keeper was even surprised at this as she said he normally will just follow his mom. But not this time. He stayed for a long time by himself and polished everything off. As we left, the keeper showed us a barn where they kept all the “presents” for Neepo and Kaia. My husband was flapergasted by this. He could not believe all the boxes and decorations that the volunteers and keepers had prepared. It was very impressive and cute.
Some things that we heard was that Safari Park is planning on taking Tempo Staduim down to make more room for the ellies and making a walk way between the yards for all guests. In addition, the plan is to bring in another bull ellie soon. The top candidate is “Moose” since he does not have any direct relationship with any of the other females, except Ndula.
Thanks to our guide, keepers, and volunteers for making this an extraordinary experience that I wish for everyone.
i saw this (on the cam, of course) today 9/29 around 2 pm pacific time (california). i couldn’t believe it so i watched for as long as neepo was on cam. he was facing the cement wall on the little slope so at first i thought it was just one leg, so thought maybe it wasn’t for chains but some medical treatment or something. but as he moved around i saw the loops on all four legs, you can imagine how horrified i was. i am telling myself there is a good reason for the bracelets and it’s not for tying him down…
Blog Monitor
can you find a answer for the loops. Thanks
Platypus
When did you notice this? Today?
there are “bracelets” on all four of (neepo’s?) legs. looks like the kind that get attached to chains to immobilize the elle. it’s awful to see, i hope there is a reason for them other than something terrible. i also posted this also on zuli’s b-day blog. have any of you noticed the loops on neepo’s legs? do you know what they are for?
Some of the cams are looking clearer and sharper. Thanks Blog Monitor for passing our concerns on
to the camera operators and vendor.
Small pool party. 5:30 pm
Wonderful for the birthday elephants and all the others to enjoy such treats. Kudos to everyone who helped.