SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Elephant twins comprise less than 1% of all elephant births worldwide and until last October, there had never been a case of surviving elephant twins in the United States.
Twin elephant births are complicated, with twins often stillborn or too weak to survive. Sometimes the mother elephant does not survive. Despite the odds however, Rosamond Gifford Zoo made history when male Asian elephant twins Yaad and Tukada were welcomed into the world by their mother Mali.
“I would attribute the success of the birth to the great care that these elephants receive every day,” elephant caretaker Alinda Dygert said. “The wild is not a great place for a lot of different animals, especially Asian elephants in particular, and being able to ultrasound her [Mali] throughout the pregnancy, make sure she constantly had all the food that she needed at all times, and also the care that Tukada received after birth, I think were vital to their survival.”
Five months after their birth, the elephant twins are thriving. The twins are available for viewing twice a day at the Helga Beck Asian Elephant Preserve and draw people from near and far to see them.
“They’re miracle elephants, and we haven’t seen them yet…my daughter is visiting from Utica and we thought today was a great day to come,” Nina Kingsley, a patron of the Zoo said.
On why she thinks so many people have flocked to see the twin elephants, zoogoer Mackenzie Carpenter said, “I think elephants are extremely charismatic, and a lot of people are attracted to them for a lot of reasons. They’re huge, they’re very pre-historic looking—a lot of people are fascinated by them…”
It is evident that the twins are extremely popular among zoogoers, but elephant caretaker Dygert says that their importance extends past the crowds they draw to the zoo.
“The genetics that these twins have are genetics that no other elephant here in the States have, and their genetics are very vital to the genetic diversity of the captive elephant population and someday hopefully they can contribute to that.”
The elephant twins’ potential contributions that Dygert is alluding to regards EEHV—a lethal strain of herpes believed to naturally occur among elephants in a dormant form. Mali’s previous calves Bantu and Ajay lost their lives due to EEHV, and Dygert is hopeful that Yaad and Tukada can contribute to the efforts to one day eradicate EEHV and help elephants both in human care and in the wild.
