Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation Mourns the Passing of Young Asian Elephant
January 28, 2016 – – Polk City, Fla. – – On Monday morning, January 25th, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation® lost its youngest elephant to the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV). Two-year old “Mike”, who was born at the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation, passed away despite the heroic efforts of our veterinary and animal care staff to save him. While final necropsy results are still pending, preliminary results, as well as blood tests sent to Smithsonian Institution’s National Elephant Herpesvirus Laboratory, indicate that EEHV was the cause.
“No one knows why the virus manifests this way in some elephants, since most elephants harbor the virus and never become ill. Mike only began to show the slightest of symptoms on Saturday and was eating and drinking well as late as Sunday afternoon, but the illness progressed very rapidly. As soon as symptoms began we started treating him but by Monday morning there was nothing more anyone could do to prevent his passing,” according to Dr. Ashley Settles, Ringling Bros. Director of Veterinary Care. “This type of herpes virus can be very aggressive in young Asian elephants. We have had success in treating elephants infected with it before but we were unable to save young Mike,” she added.
Mike was born at the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation on June 27, 2013 to parents Angelica and Romeo, who were both also born at the Center. Since its founding in 1995, the Center has welcomed 26 births of endangered Asian elephants. While other zoological institutions around the world have lost calves to EEHV this was the first at the Center.
“It is always sad when one of our elephants dies, but it’s so heartbreaking when one so young is taken from us by this awful virus,” said Janice Aria, Ringling Bros. Director of Animal Stewardship Training. “Mike was such an energetic and social young elephant. His loss is going to be felt for a very long time,” she adds.
Ringling Bros. has long supported research efforts to more fully understand, treat and prevent EEHV. Through research assistance and financial support, the circus has worked with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Elephant Herpesvirus Laboratory to share our knowledge of successfully treating elephants with the virus. To date, two other Ringling Bros. Asian elephants have been successfully treated for the virus, which normally has an 80 percent fatality rate. Additional information on EEHV and the Smithsonian lab is available at http://nationalzoo.si.edu/SCBI/AnimalCare/EEHV/.
About the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation
Ringling Bros. is a world leader in the care and conservation of the endangered Asian elephant. In 1995, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation, a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to the study, reproduction and retirement of Asian elephants, was created on a 200-acre site in Florida. Information on the Center is available online at ringlingelephantcenter.com.