 don't usually live in a herd. Once male elephants are old enough to find their own food and protect themselves, they leave the herd and live on their own or form bachelor herds with other males. Only after they become adults do they visit herds of females, and that is only for short periods of time to breed. Bulls do not take part in caring for the young.
Ellie etiquette. Good manners are important in elephant society. Trunks are used in greeting: a lower-ranking animal will insert its trunk tip into the other’s mouth. A trunk may be held out to an approaching elephant as a greeting and is also used in caressing, twining, wrestling, and checking reproductive status.
Stranger danger. Elephant calves could be a potential meal for hyenas, lions, leopards, or crocodiles, but as long as they stay near Mom or their herd, they have little to worry about. If an elephant senses danger, it trumpets a loud alarm call to alert the others. The herd then forms a protective ring, with youngsters in the middle and the adults facing out to confront a potential predator. A healthy adult elephant’s only foe is a human poacher with a powerful rifle.
At birth a baby elephant, called a calf, may stand three feet (one meter) tall. A calf is usually quite hairy, with a long tail and a very short trunk, and is very dependent upon its mother and other members of the herd. The little one uses its mouth to drink its mother's milk, so it doesn't need a long trunk to feed. Calves stick close to Mom and nurse frequently; they gain, on average, 2 to 3 pounds (1 to 1.3 kilograms) a day in their first year! Herd mates tend to look out for the calves if they are in distress.
Despite all the playtime and protection, calves still have to navigate through social nuances and establish their social rank within the herd. Babies spend their days practicing making all four legs go in the same direction at the same time, perfecting their ear flaring, and mastering trunk control. Calves are clumsy at first with their trunk, but they learn to use it as they grow older. By the time they are two to three years old, they no longer need to nurse.
AT THE ZOO
Empress and Queenie were the San Diego Zoo’s first elephants, arriving here in 1923 via train from San Francisco. After being led off the train, the two Asian elephants refused to move another step, no matter how much encouragement they received. The Zoo’s founder, Harry Wegeforth, M.D., was there to greet them, and it occurred to him that they were probably used to being ridden, so he climbed up on Empress and another staff member did the same with Queenie, and off they walked from the train station to the Zoo, gathering many astonished looks along the way!
Peaches was the San Diego Zoo’s first African elephant—and she made sure to be a memorable one, too. When she arrived in 1953, she was three years old, smart, curious, and, as then ZOONOOZ editor Ken Stott described her, “playful as a quarter-ton kitten.” She had made the journey from Africa to San Diego with keeper Ralph “Gabe” Davis, and they got along famously—at least most of the time. When Gabe gave her breakfast, she would grumble and trumpet at him until he left her alone to eat—apparently, she was not sociable in the morning. She also showed a marked preference for men, even pushing away Zoo Executive Director Belle Benchley when she tried to say hello. Peaches did become more mellow as she grew up, but even as an adult, she still had a way of “flirting” with men while more often than not giving women a cool stare.
Since that time, we've had numerous elephants at our two facilities, and our first elephant birth occurred in 1981. In 1971, Asian elephant Carol became famous by appearing on The Tonight Show with the Zoo’s animal ambassador Joan Embery, to meet Johnny Carson and paint for him while millions watched nationwide!
Today, four elephants live in the Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey habitat. Its features include the state-of-the-art Elephant Care Center, which is helpful, as our herd is made up of older, non-breeding elephants at this time. Two of them—Mary 