Baby Elephant Charms French Zoo Visitors

Описание: Nineteen-day-old Rungwe the African elephant looks like he's still getting used to his over-sized legs, ears and trunk as he stumbles round his enclosure at the Beauval wildlife park in central France.

The zoo's newest arrival is the first African elephant born in France for nine years and has proved extremely popular with the thousands of summer visitors who flood through Beauval's front gates every day.

His mother N'dala watches anxiously as her new son sniffs and gnaws his way around his giant pen and all that can distract the 23-year-old is the promise of a bunch of bananas which she pops into her mouth one by one, unpeeled!

N'dala had problems conceiving with the zoo's resident male and the management resorted to artificial insemination, a first for elephants in France.

The four-year-long process involved months of preparation for the parents followed by a 23-month gestation and quite a few sleepless for elephant keeper Nicolas Canfrere.

For the last two months of the pregnancy, he spent 24 hours a day in the elephant house anxiously waiting for the first signs of labor.

[Nicolas Canfrere, Elephant Keeper]:
"The birth was stressful because as it was a first birth, her first baby, she had no experience, she wasn't surrounded by experienced females, so actually we had to stand in for the experienced females."

The proud keepers drew lots after the birth to decide who should name the new arrival and Canfrere won, picking the name Rungwe -- a volcano in Tanzania.

According to Canfrere, N'dala has adapted well to her new role.

[Nicolas Canfrere, Elephant Keeper]:
"She's a fantastic new mother who looks after her baby very, very well."

Rungwe joins a zoo which made headlines earlier this year with the arrival of two giant pandas from Chengdu in China, with hopes that the pair might add to the Beauval nursery by breeding in the near future.

A cross-Channel boat trip brought N'dala over from England's Longleat Safari Park nine years ago, and along with her aunts she makes up the four-strong Beauval herd.

Canfrere expects that Rungwe will stay by his mother's side for about ten years before moving on to pastures new.

And some day hopefully, Rungwe will father children of his own.


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