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New Born Elephant Feels at Home under the New Roof Construction of the Elephant Park in Cologne
Although some people bring forward the idea that confinement may help to keep wild animal species from becoming extinct, zoos nowadays are often criticized for keeping wild animals in confinement. But when the zoo in Cologne happily announced the birth of an elephant baby, all people welcomed and celebrated this happy event wholeheartedly. For several months the people in Cologne have been waiting with bated breath for the birth of the elephant baby. The elephant cow Khaing Luin Htoo has been pregnant for 23 months when she finally gave birth to her elephant baby on 30 March 2006.
As nobody knew when exactly Khaing Luin Htoo has been covered, the exact date of birth remained a mystery for a long time. During her pregnancy, webcams were watching her day and night and every day lots of visitors came to see Khaing Luin Htoo. On March 30th, it took Khaing Luin Htoo 14 hours to give birth to her elephant baby and it seemed as if the birth was very complicated: At the beginning, doctors and keepers had to help her with parturifacients, hormones and injections, then Khaing Luin Htoo went into labour, lay down and suddenly everything seemed to happen very fast. When the elephant baby was born, the elephant aunts immediately started to protect the little one and helped the baby to get on its feet, because Khaing Luin Htoo was so exhausted. It is interesting to note as well, that right after the birth nobody knew whether the little elephant was male or female and doctors and keepers didn't try to find out, because they didn't want to disturb the elephants and decided to give them a chance to rest. Thanks to the new designed elephant park with its stunning roof construction the little elephant has the chance to grow up and feel at home in a nearly natural habitat.
