Elephants give birth after a rare treatment

An Asian elephant named Tamar gave birth to a baby elephant at the Jerusalem Zoo after experiencing rare artificial insemination, the Israeli news agency announced yesterday.

The baby elephant weighs 90 kilos and is the 11th elephant in the world to be born by this method, the Haaretz newspaper announced.

Zoo staff were concerned about the health of the 21-year-old mother and the pregnancy after labor did not progress after four hours.

But 2 hours later, the elephant was born healthy and the mother was safe. About 40% of the elephants died immediately after birth or during the first year of life, Haaretz said.

Scientists say Asian elephants are endangered, leaving only about 34,000 to 54,000 live in nature.

The baby elephant was born last Saturday at the zoo of the Tisch family in Jerusalem, from the sperm of a male elephant living in England.

The average Asian elephant is 22 months pregnant and the elephant weighs about 100 kg. Artificial insemination is a complicated process with elephants because sperm cannot be frozen. In Tamar's case, the sperm was transported from England in three flights.