Each month, as Nandi bounds closer to her 1-year birthday on Aug. 20, we will keep you in the know on whatโs new with this precious pachydermโs progress.
Sue Tygielski, the Reid Park Zooโs elephant manager, has the skinny on Tucsonโs big baby.
Age: Five months on Tuesday, Jan. 20. The herd is planning something for Nandiโs 6-month birthday in February, Tygielski says.
Weight: About 600 pounds.
Nandiโs first Christmas: The herd woke on Christmas morning to an exhibit covered in enrichment items. โShe had boxes wrapped with fruit inside, and she also had boxes that had beet pulp, which they like,โ Tygielski says. But instead of eating the goodies, Nandi took the typical, kid approach. โShe hadnโt had a lot of paper before that. It was her first experience ripping paper and waving it around like a giant flag. She had a lot of fun. She didnโt eat the contents like the other elephants. She just played with the box.โ
Nandiโs keepers also gave her a large, plastic cube that momentarily frightened her. โShe ran up to it and trumpeted and bumped into it with her head and stepped on it. She stood on it like, โIโm going to smash this,โโ Tygielski says.
That white stuff: Unlike the rest of the city, Nandi took the weather in stride. The exhibit had more frost than snow on New Yearโs Eve, Tygielski says. โThey didnโt react to the fog ... For us, we call them, and they come across the exhibit, and they just appear. It was kind of spooky. You donโt hear their feet. They walk silently.โ
Independence: Nandi no longer needs Mom around 24/7, Tygielski says. Instead, she spends more time with other members of the herd, hanging out with Dad even when Semba is across the exhibit. โShe will stay in the barn and play while her mom goes out to exhibit. She wants to go into all the rooms in the barn, so it takes longer to get her out. Itโs a pain in the butt, but itโs cute. She is becoming an explorer, more confident.โ
Milking it: Ninety percent of Nandiโs nutrition still comes from nursing, but she now nurses for longer amounts of time but less frequently. Hay and pellets have also become more usual munchies for the baby elephant. โShe doesnโt just play with them in her mouth,โ Tygielski says. The keepers use pellets to reward the elephants for responding, so until Nandi sees them as a treat, she has no incentive to recognize her name.
Slip and slide: โIn the mud I almost felt sorry for her,โ Tygielski says. โIt was raining a few days in a row โฆ The older elephants know to walk slow when itโs slippery, but she was trying to run in it. She fell almost six times, flopped in the mud and kept going. She had to slow down to get to the barn. Mom didnโt help her. She looked at her like, โFigure it out, kid.โโ
For more information on Nandi visit tucson.com/elephant
