Cheyenne Mountain Zoo announces death of 48-year-old African elephant
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (CMZoo) says one of its African elephants, 48-year-old Kimba, has died.
The CMZoo says it decided to humanely euthanize Kimba on Monday after she was suffering from lethargy and decreased appetite. They say Kimba has dealt with these issues before and been able to recover, but did not recover to "the quality of health she deserved" after treatment.
Kimba was the second-oldest in the zoo's herd of female African elephants. The zoo brought her in at three years old in 1981. She was brought over with Lucky, who is now 46 and is still at CMZoo.
"Before I got to CMZoo, I was taught that you needed to be loud and assertive with elephants, and I learned that’s not true," Ilana Cobban, elephant care manager at the zoo, said in a press release. "Kimba wanted you to be gentle and patient, to talk to her quietly, and I just loved that. She was this huge animal who wanted your kindness, and I loved being able to prove, through working with her, that we didn’t need to be loud – we needed to listen. Almost 25 years later, a lot has changed in the way we care for elephants, but we didn’t change that gentle, listening approach that Kimba taught us. We embraced it.”
The zoo says Kimba, who weighed over five tons, was known for jumping to the front of the line for food and training opportunities. They say she was also dominant in letting other animals know their place if they got too close to her.
"She would toss sand at wild deer approaching the fenceline, or pigeons that landed in her yard,” Cobban said. “She wouldn’t charge at them. She knew she was big enough to make her message clear. She would just stand facing them with her ears out and throw sand in their direction, like, ‘you’re not supposed to be here; this is my yard.’”
The zoo says Kimba could be wary of other elephants and people, but grew to trust her care team. The zoo says the other elephants were given access to Kimba shortly after her passing to help them process her loss. They say they will continue to monitor her closest friend, Lucky, before moving her back with the rest of the herd.
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