Operation Frozen Dumbo helps elephants survive

Poaching, habitat destruction, and local weather change have decimated wild African elephant populations and pushed the animals into endangered-species territory. A world undertaking known as Operation Frozen Dumbo goals to bolster elephant populations within the wild and within the world’s zoos.

Above a herd of elephants within the Selati Recreation Reserve in South Africa, helicopter pilot Jana Meyer and wildlife veterinarian Hayden Cuthill scan the bush for essentially the most worthy-looking bull elephant. As soon as their goal is chosen, Ms. Meyer deftly maneuvers her plane to separate the animal from the herd. Dr. Cuthill shortly estimates the male’s weight and prepares the tranquilizer dose. He fixes the ampul atop a particular dart, which he shoots immediately into the male’s left flank.

A workforce on the bottom will gather the elephant’s sperm as a part of the Frozen Dumbo undertaking. The samples collected within the wild are cryogenically frozen and shipped to a consortium of European zoos, which use them to artificially inseminate their females. 

Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Analysis, who has overseen the profitable synthetic insemination of greater than 50 feminine elephants, is enthusiastic about his purpose: “We’ve to cease populating the European zoos with animals from the wild.”

Above a herd of elephants within the Selati Recreation Reserve in South Africa, helicopter pilot Jana Meyer and wildlife veterinarian Hayden Cuthill scan the bush for essentially the most worthy-looking bull elephant.

As soon as their goal is chosen, Ms. Meyer deftly maneuvers her plane to separate the animal from the herd. Dr. Cuthill shortly estimates the male’s weight and prepares the tranquilizer dose. He fixes the ampul atop a particular dart, which he shoots immediately into the male’s left flank.

A workforce on the bottom will gather the elephant’s sperm as a part of an ongoing worldwide effort to enhance elephant fertility, a undertaking known as Operation Frozen Dumbo. The samples collected within the wild are cryogenically frozen and shipped to a consortium of European zoos, which use them to artificially inseminate their females.

This avoids the importation of untamed elephants.

Elements reminiscent of poaching, habitat destruction, and local weather change have decimated wild African elephant populations and pushed the animals into endangered-species territory. The Frozen Dumbo undertaking goals to bolster elephant populations within the wild and on this planet’s zoos.

Again at Selati, the sedated male – dubbed The Sperminator – points a collection of loud grunts. A volunteer retains the tip of his trunk dilated with a wood stick to make sure the animal’s respiration.

Elephants draw air completely by way of their trunks, so if something blocks this double-channel pathway, the animal may shortly die. Elephants can not breathe by way of their mouths like different land mammals – a trait inherited from their aquatic ancestors.

That is the fifth day of the Selati sperm-collecting expedition, which has been largely unsuccessful.

Everybody on the workforce is relieved when an ultrasound carried out by the undertaking’s lead scientist, Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Analysis, reveals the animal’s reproductive potential to be excessive. His semen is extracted into vials that can then be flown by helicopter to a subject lab to be progressively frozen. These might be shipped to a cryobank at ZooParc de Beauval in France.

Dr. Hildebrandt, who has overseen the profitable synthetic insemination of greater than 50 feminine elephants, is enthusiastic about his purpose: “We’ve to cease populating the European zoos with animals from the wild,” he says. “As an alternative, we solely have to import the sperm and the egg cells.”