When a male Lion takes over a pride, he kills most of the cubs to ensure all new cubs born are his offspring.
Asian Elephant
Asian Elephants are found in a range of habitat areas in the South East Asian region. They inhabit areas of dense forest to dryer grassed plains.
The Asian Elephant spends most of its day searching for food. Their diet consists of bamboo, palms, fruit and other forest plants.
Elephants have the longest pregnancy of all mammals with a gestation period of 22 months. A newborn baby may weigh between 90kg and 110kg at birth.
The calf suckles milk from its mother, generally taking around 12 litres each day. The calf initially needs to learn how to suckle and baby elephants are usually dependent on mother's milk for up to three years, although they can be weaned at two years of age.
By the time a calf is nine months old, 40 per cent of its diet is vegetation. The calf learns how and what to eat by watching the older elephants.
It takes time for a calf to acquire trunk coordination. At first it may only be able to wave it around in the air, suck on it or trip over it, however within a week the calf has usually gained enough control to try picking up and carrying small objects and food.
The male (bull) Asian Elephants develop large, tusks similar to the African Elephant bulls. The females however generally only have smaller tushes, that don't grow much past the upper lip.
They may live to the age of 60, usually less in the wild.
The population of Asian Elephants is in very serious decline, since competition with civilisation over housing and cultivation has led to loss of habitat. Sadly, in some areas land mines left over from various wars are also claiming the lives of elephants.
However the most pressing problem faced by wild Asian Elephants is loss of habitat. In Thailand alone, the area of rainforest has diminished from 80% coverage (prior to WW2) to only 15% today. Asian Elephants are endangered with as few as 34,000 remaining across 13 countries.
Taronga and partner zoos have established a conservation breeding program for the Asian elephants to create a self sustaining breeding herd. As with any conservation breeding program, the long-term aims are to preserve the genetic diversity of an endangered species within zoos as insurance populations, should they be required if wild populations were to collapse in the future.
For more information on Taronga's elephants see http://taronga.org.au/elephant
