Colorado Springs, Colo. – This morning, a team of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo staff used specialized equipment to successfully assist Malaika, a 33-year-old African elephant, who was found lying on her side during an overnight check. If an elephant can’t get up on its own and is down for too long, it can cause stress to its internal organs and can be fatal. The team responded in the early-morning hours to mobilize a specialized crane-and-hoist system in the barn to help the elephant to her feet, since she was unable to stand on her own.

The team was made up of more than 20 cross-discipline Zoo staff members, including Malaika’s animal keepers, veterinary staff, maintenance and grounds personnel, The Colorado Springs Fire Department Heavy Rescue team, Broadmoor Fire Department, and more.

The Zoo’s emergency response team was able to use the barn’s hoist system to help Malaika into a sternal position (on her belly, with legs in a better position to stand). Malaika was then able to stand on her own, with the hoist strap still in place for support, at 6:47 a.m. Since then, her care team, including her keepers and veterinary staff, have been monitoring her for any additional medical concerns. She is drinking electrolyte water, eating some of her favorite treats, and taking medication for inflammation and pain.

Malaika has a history of not being able to get back up from laying down, and had to be rescued once before, on Jan. 1, 2018. Some elephants are able to lie down and get back up with no problem, but some, like Malaika, don’t ever lie down and instead just lean on objects for rest. This is partially due to a life-long issue with bowing and lack of strength in her back right leg, which is worsening as she ages.

Because of Malaika’s history, Zoo staff monitor her throughout the day and with checks every two hours overnight. Our monitoring system shows that Malaika went down around 3:45 a.m., from what appears to be a leg wobble during a deep sleep. She was discovered down during the 5 a.m. check. A core Zoo team was assembled at the elephant barn between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m., with a full team on-site by 6 a.m. Protocols were immediately put into place to help her stand.

The Zoo cares for an aging female elephant herd, so the barn is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment that helps address the inevitable complications that come with multi-ton animals that need medical assistance. Equipment includes a remote video surveillance system for animal care staff to monitor the elephants, the crane-and-hoist system that can lift a disabled elephant and a care system that provides a safe area for weighing, veterinary care and husbandry training. Outdoor wellness features of the exhibit include an exercise path, built-in enrichment activities, a pool and a spacious vacation yard, where our elephants can take time to roam and explore by themselves.

Zoo staff performs drills to practice and test protocols for situations like these. The last “down elephant” drill occurred in January 2019, which is likely one reason the procedure to help Malaika today ran as successfully as it did.

 

 

About Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Society was founded in 1926. Today, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, America’s only mountain zoo, offers comprehensive education programs, exciting conservation efforts and truly fantastic animal experiences. It is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s hope that guests fall in love with animals and nature, and take action to protect them. Of the 233 zoos and aquariums accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is one of just ten operating without tax support. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo depends on admissions, membership dues, special event attendance and donations for funding.

Pachyderm Artists Amaze Us.

All five female African elephants at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo are artists. Lucky paints on canvas and makes individual signature trunk prints. Kimba and the rest of the herd; Jambo, LouLou and Missy, create canvas and paper paintings.

Lucky was the first African elephant at the Zoo to begin painting in the mid-1990s. Her work has been showcased in galleries at the Colorado Springs Airport and the City Council chamber, and purchased by patrons of all backgrounds and locations around the globe. Learn more about each of our elephants.

Unique Benefits of Elephant Art:

  • Painting enriches the elephants’ lives and stimulates their minds.
  • All proceeds from sale of elephant art go towards the care and feeding of all the animals at the Zoo.
  • Every time someone looks at elephant art on display, they are reminded of how amazing and intelligent these animals are!

Support your favorites with digital, traditional, gift package, and group adoptions. Gifting any adopt choice is available by simply completing the gift area at checkout.

Foster any animal and you’ll help Cheyenne Mountain Zoo continue to provide outstanding care. Whether given as a gift or used to celebrate a favorite species, symbolic adoptions come with a variety of benefits only adoptive parents can enjoy.

Ways to adopt your favorites:
  1. Digital Adoption – ($35) choose any Zoo animal from the full list provided below.
  2. Group Adoption – ($35+) pick a herd, chatter or family for your classroom or group, offered for certain featured animals below.
  3. Traditional Adoption – ($50+) choose any Zoo animal from the full list provided below.
  4. Wild Adopt Gift Packages – ($65) includes a cuddly plush, offered for many featured animals below.
  5. Gift any Adoption – ($35+) gifting any adoption is offered during check-out.

Every day of the year, conservation is at the center of the inspiration and work at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. As 2018 comes to a close, we’re reflecting on some of CMZoo’s conservation contributions this year. We hope you’ll be inspired to take action, big or small, to join us in the important work of conserving endangered species for generations to come.

One way to support wildlife conservation (while learning a lot and having a great time) is by visiting the Zoo! Through CMZoo’s Quarters for Conservation program, guests contribute to conservation around the world, simply by visiting the Zoo. For each paid admission to the Zoo, 75¢ is directly allocated for conservation programs including safeguarding African vultures, rescuing frogs in Panama, protecting wild orangutans, restoring the population of black-footed ferrets, saving wild giraffe, increasing the population of endangered Wyoming toads and helping to protect African elephants and rhinoceroses. Each year, Quarters for Conservation allows Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to contribute $500,000 to these conservation efforts and more.

Learn more about Quarters for Conservation here and continue reading to learn about some of 2018’s conservation highlights.

Operation Twiga

Giraffe conservation was given a generous boost from many helping hands when Operation Twiga continued in 2018 with Operation Twiga III in Uganda. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo staff and other concerned conservationists took part in translocating endangered Nubian giraffe to a safer location, where they could establish new herds and maintain the important genetics of their subspecies. Additionally, the operation generated more critical health data which will feed research that helps conservationists understand disease management and threats facing all giraffe in the wild.

During Operation Twiga III, the team was able to capture and move a total of 14 giraffe from Murchison Falls National Park, where oil drilling is set to begin, to their new home in Kidepo Valley National Park.

Tsavo Trust

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s Quarters for Conservation has allowed us to send more support to Tsavo Trust – a field-based non-profit organization in Africa that uses aerial surveillance and on-the-ground field efforts to protect wildlife in Tsavo National Park, the largest national park in Kenya. The organization was founded to help protect the last of the “big tuskers,” which are likely the last viable genetic pool of African elephants with tusks weighing more than 100 pounds each. The park is also home to a number of black rhino sanctuaries established by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KSW) and supported by the Zoological Society of London. The black rhino is critically endangered, due primarily to illegal poaching for their horns.

In partnership with the Kratt Foundation in August, CMZoo sent $53,333 to support ongoing anti-poaching aerial surveillance efforts, bringing the total contribution to $145,000. These funds also helped complete the construction of Tsavo Trust on-site staff housing. This donation means Tsavo Trust can continue to monitor and protect roughly 16,000 miles of land that is vital to the survival of these endangered species.

Black footed-ferrets

In mid-September, four kits and four adult black-footed ferrets (BFF) were moved to a preconditioning center outside of Fort Collins, Colo., where biologists observe the ferrets to ensure they can hunt, avoid predators and shelter themselves to survive without human intervention and continue to increase the endangered species’ population when they’re introduced into the wild.

Since the 1981 discovery of a small population of BFFs in Meeteetse, Wyoming, conservationists launched a black-footed ferret recovery plan which continues to increase the population. Numbers fluctuate, but recent reports estimate 350 BFFs are thriving in the wild, thanks to this program.

Protecting wild orangutans

Palm oil is widely used in many products, ranging from food to cosmetics, but is grown in just a few countries throughout the world. This includes much of Indonesia and Malaysia, which are home to orangutans and other unique species. As the demand for palm oil has increased globally, Indonesia’s and Malaysia’s natural rainforest has decreased in size as a result of unsustainable slash-and-burn clearing to make way for more palm oil crops. This loss of habitat threatens the survival of many native species.

CMZoo is committed to educating the public about the use of sustainable palm oil, providing guidance about which companies are members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, which means they are committed to using sustainably produced palm oil in their products. In September, CMZoo’s palm oil team traveled to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums annual conference to share knowledge and resources. CMZoo’s palm oil app has been named as a reliable guide for information on sustainable palm oil in many publications and forums, including most recently by National Geographic.

African vultures

Vulture conservation has been a focus at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for nearly a decade, and while strides have been made toward protecting them, this critically important species still hovers on the brink of extinction. They need our help more than ever.

This year, the Association of Zoos & Aquariums voted to include African vultures as one of their SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction) projects, thereby creating an opportunity for more united conservation efforts. Currently, 12 zoos across the country are committed to partnering with African conservation organizations in order to address the African vulture population crisis. As part of this group, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo supports Vulpro in their efforts to re-introduce African vultures to their wild habitat through one of our Quarters for Conservation legacy projects.

In addition, these birds have been part of our annual membership vote the past three years. We are proud to say that Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has donated nearly $67,000 to vulture conservation to date.

Wyoming toads

CMZoo made favorable strides in the management of endangered Wyoming toads in spring and early summer as CMZ experienced a robust egg-laying season, followed by the release of hundreds of year-old toads into the wild. Wyoming toads are currently listed as “extinct in the wild” by The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

On May 30, our CMZoo staff released more than 200 head start toads into the wetlands of the Laramie Basin of Wyoming. At the same time, 856 head-start toads were released by Saratoga National Fish Hatchery and around 50 were released by the Leadville National Fish Hatchery.

Head-start toads develop from tadpoles hatched the previous year. This year’s breeding season at CMZ began June 4 when, after hibernating for 35 days, 11 pairs of adult Wyoming toads were put together in the breeding center. Nine of the pairs produced fertile egg strands, which included 14,822 eggs!

The work continues, as we grow our conservation programs and educate the public about how they can help support efforts to protect wild species.

Golden Years

Seeing LouLou, a 36-year-old female African elephant at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, participate in one of her daily care routines is like witnessing a pedicure of gigantic proportions.

Annie Dinwiddie, senior elephant keeper, points her target pole toward a horizontal rod and gently says, “foot.” Three-and-a-half-ton LouLou gracefully places her twelve-inch diameter round pad on a foot rest where Dinwiddie can inspect it and remedy any issues.

“We do this every day with all of our elephants,” Dinwiddie said. “As big as elephants are, the last thing we want is foot problems. Those feet are connected to the rest of their giant body. Their foot health is often a good indicator of their overall health, so this is one way we’re taking a preventative approach in their overall care.”

LouLou balances on three legs and presents her front left foot while Dinwiddie washes it and inspects it closely for any stuck debris, cracks or elephant-sized hang nails. The process takes about three minutes on one foot that needs a little work, due to LouLou enthusiastically using her toenails to strip bark from a log – a tasty treat for elephants. With the same ease and grace as she did before, at Dinwiddie’s request, LouLou expertly shifts her weight to present her back foot and Dinwiddie repeats the process.

LouLou is one of six “Golden Girls” in Encounter Africa, along with Missy, Kimba, Lucky, Jambo and Malaika. They’re all African elephants, but have unique personalities and some distinguishable physical features that help CMZoo visitors recognize and enjoy their individual personalities.

At 49, Missy is one of the oldest African elephants in human care in accredited zoos. She’s often in the yard with LouLou, 36, who is the easiest elephant to identify because she doesn’t have tusks. Kimba, 40, is the largest of the group, weighing in at just over 9,000 pounds. Lucky, 38, is playful and can be seen splashing around in the water or, on sunny winter days, throwing snow and then eating it. Jambo, 35, and Malaika, 32, are known as the sassiest and prefer to spend solo time in one of their many spaces at the Zoo.

“In addition to providing foot care, we’re always trying to give them opportunities to take care of their feet on their own,” Dinwiddie said. “We do that by allowing them to be elephants and to do what elephants are designed to do: move and walk. We have a lot of space for our elephants.”

That space is important in keeping six middle-to-upper aged elephants exercised, flexible and mentally engaged.

“They get smarter and smarter, so we’re constantly thinking of new ways to keep them stimulated and on their toes – and that keeps us on our toes,” said Thomas Reid, elephant animal keeper. “They may be getting up there in age, but they’re all young at heart.”

A big part of an elephant keeper’s job is moving them around between the different spaces. The goal is to prevent them from being in the same space for more than an hour. Various husbandry activities that keepers practice with the elephants daily means the elephants explore different areas and stay comfortable with keepers being in protected-but-close proximity, which is necessary to their care.

“The training is always on their terms,” Dinwiddie said. “They’re trained to present their ears so we can do monthly blood draws. There are a lot of blood vessels in their ears and it’s the thinnest area of skin. They have the ability to restrict blood flow to their ears, so literally if they don’t want to participate, they can prevent it from happening. If they choose to participate, they get a handful of jumbo marshmallows as a special treat that reinforces their behavior.”

Taking proper care of any animal requires dedication, but keeping this aging group healthy and happy calls for a jam-packed schedule of care, training, monitoring and documentation.

The elephants also participate in ‘elephant yoga,’ doing various stretches instructed by keepers in effort to maintain flexibility. Keepers take the elephants on daily walks on a quarter-mile path they call the elephant trek, ensuring they get adequate exercise. Lucky and Missy get injections to help with arthritis, and they’re all weighed monthly. Keepers document images of each of their feet to track changes long-term and five of the six elephants need regular oral medications for various reasons.

“Because of their size, often it’s a large number of pills,” Dinwiddie said. ”We ask them to come around to the bollards and open their mouths. Then we throw the pills into their mouths and chase it with orange juice. They swallow and it’s all done.”

On days of 40-degrees-or-cooler weather, the girls have the option of going into the barn, which is open to guests all year long, or into the yard. Visitors can also get to know CMZoo’s amazing elephant herd by planning an animal encounter. During these behind-the-scenes experiences, guests can feed them and even watch them paint a picture.
For more information, visit cmzoo.org/encounter.