Each month, as Nandi bounds closer to her one-year birthday on Aug. 20, 2015, we will keep you in the know on what’s new with this precious pachyderm’s progress.
Sue Tygielski, the Reid Park Zoo’s elephant manager, has the skinny on Tucson’s big baby.
Age: Two months as of Monday.
Weight: A little more than 400 pounds. She gains three to four pounds every day and weighed 245 pounds at birth.
One of the herd: “She is playing more with her brothers and some of that is Mom letting them, because they are being gentle and good. They splash each other in the mud wallow, and she runs up to them and charges them and touches them with her trunk. They push her a little bit, and it’s gentle wrestling.”
What’s new: She still loves water and now uses her front teeth to dig in wet areas of sand. “Mom will put water from the stream on the ground, and she’ll play in it and make her own little puddle. She is becoming very skilled at taking small drinks of water with her trunk,” Tygielski says. Nandi is also learning to hoist herself over logs, front feet first, but sometimes still needs a push from Mom, “like a parent helping a kid on the playground.”
Read more about Nandi at tucson.com/elephant
