HOUSTON — BIG news from the Houston Zoo just in time for Mother's Day weekend! Shanti the elephant is pregnant again!
The 33-year-old Asian elephant is expecting a baby at the end of 2024 after a 22-month gestation period.
The baby daddy is Shanti's longtime boyfriend, 58-year-old Thailand.
The calf's sex will be a surprise because ultrasounds can't determine if it's a boy or a girl.
"Shanti is an experienced mom and very attentive to her calves as she watches over them closely," the zoo said in the birth announcement.
This will be Shanti's seventh calf born at the Houston Zoo.
Her next big bundle of joy will join siblings Nelson and Joy, who are still in the zoo's current elephant herd.
Nelson weighed a whopping 385 pounds when he was born in 2020. Joy was a petite 305 pounds at birth in 2017.
In 2019, Joy survived an often deadly virus called active elephantendotheliotropic herpesvirus, also known as EEHV. The virus can cause severe disease in young elephants, and sometimes fatal bleeding.
The Zoo’s dedicated animal care team will keep a close watch on Shanti throughout her pregnancy. They do weekly blood tests and monitor the elephant's hormone levels to ensure she's progressing as expected.
After she gives birth, Shanti and her newborn will spend several days bonding behind the scenes before he or she is introduced to the rest of the herd.
A portion of each zoo admission and memberships go to protecting wild elephants in Asia. The zoo provides funds for elephant conservationist, Nurzhafarina “Farina” Othman and her team in Asia, to put tracking collars on wild elephants. The collars are used to follow the elephants and collect critical data used to help protect elephant families as they travel through the forests.