Jan 25, 2008 3:04 pm US/Central
Elephant Dies At Fort Worth Zoo
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
One of the elephants at the Fort Worth Zoo has died.
Babe, a 40-year-old Asian elephant, died Thursday of complications during labor. A necropsy showed she had a torn uterus, which, zoo officials say, probably killed her.
Zoo officials say Babe was the oldest female elephant in the Fort Worth Zoo's herd.
She arrived at the zoo in 1991.
Babe became pregnant in May 2006.
She went into labor on Sunday afternoon.
In a statement, zoo spokeswoman Remecka Owens says Babe's labor was normal at first, but her health declined as the week went on.
The elephant died while sleeping at 7:30 Thursday morning.
The calf also did not survive.
Six elephants remain at the Fort Worth Zoo.
Four are females and two are males.
Elephants are pregnant for 22 months before delivery.
In her statement, Owens says the calf dies or is stillborn in 33% of Asian elephant births.
According to the Fort Worth Zoo, just three Asian elephants were born in North America last year.
The National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. says only about 30,000 Asian elephants remain in the wild.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Stumble It!
