Spring has sprung

Endangered Asian elephant, Nang Phaya trumpets in the new season. New pictures taken by zookeepers at Whipsnade Zoo show baby elephant Nang Phaya trumpeting in her first spring at the conservation zoo. 

The seven-month-old Asian elephant - born in August 2022 as part of a vital European conservation breeding programme for the Endangered species - has been showing her playful side as she soaks up the March sunshine in the Dunstable hills.  

Keepers hope that one day the youngster will grow up to lead the conservation herd at the UK’s largest zoo, but say she’s still got a lot to learn from the multi-generational family around her. 

“Nang Phaya is growing up to be a very adventurous elephant,” said keeper Stefan Groeneveld.  “She’s learning lots of new skills from her mum Donna, and grandma Kaylee – as well as through playtime with her six-year-old cousin, Elizabeth.  

“Phaya is already a strong swimmer and has great motor skills – she loves picking up and investigating things with her trunk. Next she’ll learn how to forage for food amongst the dense green grasses at Whipsnade, which is a really important skill for young elephants to learn. 

“She’s also worked out she can get extra helpings of dinner from her family if she stands below the hay nets while the rest of the herd are eating; it’s to her advantage that elephants are very messy eaters,” Stefan added.  

Asian elephants are classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species with recent estimates suggesting that as few as 7,000 are left in South-East Asia: these numbers continue to dwindle due to habitat loss, poaching and human/wildlife conflict.  

ZSL, the international conservation charity behind Whipsnade Zoo, is working across Thailand, Nepal, Cameroon and West Africa to protect elephants, working with local communities to help people and wildlife co-exist peacefully and using camera traps to study the dynamics between Asian elephants and other wildlife - helping researchers to understand the long-term trends of elephant distribution, density and population structure. 

At Whipsnade Zoo, while caring for the conservation herd, footage and images taken by zookeepers assists ZSL conservationists by providing a unique and rare insight into the behaviour of elephants at all ages – vital to ZSL’s work in the field.  

To see Nang Phaya, her family and 10,000 other animals at Whipsnade Zoo this spring, book a ticket today by visiting  https://www.whipsnadezoo.org/