2020-12-04 - Tokyo, Japan.
On Tuesday, Tokyo’s Ueno Zoological Gardens unveiled its first baby elephant to the world and asked the public to help name it, reported news agency Reuters. The male calf is born to parent elephants Authi and Artid who were gifted to Japan by Thailand in 2002. The gifts were presented to celebrate the birth of Princess Aiko, who is the only daughter of Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako.
2020-11-01 - Tokyo, Japan.
Ueno Zoo has seen the first birth of a baby elephant since it opened in 1882. Authai, a female Asian elephant at the zoo in Tokyo, gave birth to a male cub at 5:44 a.m. Saturday (8:44 p.m. Friday GMT), the zoo has said. The baby elephant measures 1 meter in height to its back and weighs 120.5 kilograms. The mother and the baby are both in good condition, according to the zoo.
2020-08-25 - Tokyo, Japan.
Athi, (also known as Ache, Artit, Artid) who killed his keeper in 2005, died 24th August 2020, 23 years old, in Ueno Zoo, Japan. He could not stand up on the morning of the 23rd and was confirmed dead on the 24th. He was found to be infected with tuberculosis in late July.
2016-11-01 - Tokyo, Japan.
People who miss Hanako, the popular elephant who died in May at a Tokyo zoo, can chip in via the internet to help build a statue in her memory. Hanako reached the age of 69 and was the nation’s oldest elephant. An executive committee comprising the Musashino city government, a local chamber of commerce and other groups, has begun soliciting donations to erect a statue of the Asian elephant.
An elephant at Ueno Zoological Gardens has had a miscarriage, about four months after it was confirmed as the first Asian elephant to get pregnant at the Tokyo zoo since it opened in 1882, the zoo said on Tuesday (Nov 1). Authi, 18, had been expected to give birth around June or July next year but had a miscarriage on Monday, possibly due to a blocked blood flow caused by a twisted umbilical cord.
2015-11-06 - Tokyo, Japan.
Researchers in Japan have now conducted a more detailed investigation of this behaviour, by setting two female elephants at Kamine Zoo a range of food-blasting challenges. Typically, it took the elephants just 3 blows to bring a food item within reach.
2012-10-07 - Tokyo, Japan.
The longstanding ties between the Higashiyama zoo and the Dehiwela zoo in Sri Lanka dates back to the time when the first 2 elephants were gifted to the zoo by the Pinnawela elephant orphanage in 2005. At present these elephants are in good health and the female elephant is to give birth to a baby elephant in a few months.
2012-10-03 - Tokyo, Japan.
Yasui S, Konno A, Tanaka M, Idani G, Ludwig A, Lieckfeldt D, & Inoue-Murayama M (2012). Personality Assessment and Its Association With Genetic Factors in Captive Asian and African Elephants. The researchers write, “this study is the first examination of genetic components affecting individual differences of personality in captive elephants.”
2012-06-25 - Tokyo, Japan.
Technically they are not an import, but a loan from the generous Laotian government, who have agreed to send across six elephants to Japan. The animals will make the Tohoku Safari Park in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture; Iwate Safari Park in Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture; and World Monkey Park in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, their new homes. The loan is for a short span of three years and the animals are expected to arrive in July.
2012-02-14 - Tokyo, Japan.
Inokashira Park Zoo in western Tokyo held an event Sunday to mark the 65th birthday of Japan´s oldest Asian elephant, Hanako. A Thai Embassy envoy and mayors of two local cities took part in a ceremony while around 350 visitors joined zoo staff in celebrating. Hanako is now the fifth oldest elephant at zoos around the world, with the oldest aged 74 years, zoo director Etsuo Narushima said in a speech.
2011-12-05 - Tokyo, Japan.
Scientists from Japan´s Kinki University and the Sakha Republic´s mammoth museum have discovered well preserved marrow in a thigh bone discovered in Siberia, buried under the permafrost. The marrow is in such good condition that its cells´ DNA could be used to replace the nuclei of elephant egg cells. Scientists have been trying to clone woolly mammoths for years, but now they´re really close. So close that in five years you may see herds of this gigantic beast—one of t...
2011-02-09 - Tokyo, Japan.
A survey of Japanese Internet auction sites has revealed an average of more than 20 new and potentially illegal listings for ivory products per day. The auction site survey -- conducted by the Japanese branch of the non-government organization Traffic, which monitors the international animal trade also revealed that many of the listings do not mention a country of origin or other vital information, suggesting some of the items may be connected to the illegal trade in animals and animal products.
2009-01-15 - Tokyo, Japan.
As always, a little about the film: This 2005 film stars Yuya Yagira (Tetsumu), of Dare mo Shiranai (Nobody Knows) fame - a role that earned him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival - as a young man who wants to become the first Japanese elephant trainer. I think the elephants scenes are the ones that I enjoyed the most~ xD THOUGH, the ending is not really happy…
2008-08-20 - Tokyo, Japan. Irie-Sugimoto N, Kobayashi T, Sato T, Hasegawa T. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo
This study investigated whether Asian elephants can make relative quantity judgment (RQJ), a dichotomous judgment of unequal quantities ordered in magnitude. In Experiment 1, elephants were simultaneously shown two baskets with differing quantities of bait (up to 6 items). In Experiment 2, elephants were sequentially presented with baits, which could not be seen by elephants in their total quantities. The task of elephants was to choose the larger quantity in both experiments. Results showed tha...
2008-08-20 - Tokyo, Japan. Ewen Callaway, NewScientist.com news service
Add elephants to the growing menagerie of animals that can count. An Asian elephant named Ashya beat this reporter at a devilishly simple addition problem. When a trainer dropped three apples into one bucket and one apple into a second, then four more apples in the first and five more in the second, the pacaderm recognised that three plus four is greater than one plus five, and snacked on the seven apples. (In my defence, I watched the video in a noisy and crowded auditorium.)
2008-04-24 - Tokyo, Japan.
A 2.8 ton ivory stockpile, confiscated in 2006 by Japan Customs in Osaka, has finally been incinerated after previous reports that authorities were hesitating to do so. The record ivory haul represents the lost lives of hundreds of endangered African elephants. The initial confiscation of the ivory took place in August 2006, and represents the largest ivory seizure ever in Japan. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry indicates that the contraband was destroyed last month.
2008-01-23 - Tokyo, Japan. Shigeki Tao / Yomiuri Shimbun
Organized by The Yomiuri Shimbun and others, an exhibition of the mammoth is being held until Feb. 3 at the Marunouchi Building in front of Tokyo Station. Since the end of last year, Naoki Suzuki, director of the Institute for High Dimensional Medical Imaging, has been conducting 3-D computer mapping of a frozen baby mammoth that was discovered in May in permafrost in Russia's western Siberia. The institute, which is part of Jikei University, is located in Komae, Tokyo. With body hair on its fro...
2008-01-23 - Tokyo, Japan. Kaori Bell
When we mention zoos, Japanese people first think of elephants. Many of us know an old song for children in which mentions their long trunks. According to the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums latest database, we have already more than 50 elephants in captivity.
2008-01-04 - Tokyo, Japan. Hiroko Tabuchi
Frozen in much the state it died some 37,500 years ago, a Siberian baby mammoth undergoing tests in Japan could finally explain why the beasts were driven to extinction -- and shed light on climate change, scientists said Friday. The 6-month-old calf, unearthed in May by a reindeer herder in northern Siberia's remote Yamal-Nenets autonomous region, is virtually intact and even has some fur, though the tail and ear of the animal dubbed "Lyuba" were apparently bitten off. "Lyuba's discovery is an ...
2008-01-02 - Tokyo, Japan.
The fossil baby mammoth named Lyuba that was found in May 2007 on Yamal has been delivered from Moscow to Tokyo for research purposes. A refrigerating chamber with the well-preserved 50 kilogram body of the baby mammoth has been transferred from the Narita international airport to Jikei University in Komae, a suburb of Tokyo. Scientists assume that Lyuba died at the aged of 6 months and its body lied in permafrost for about 37 thousand years. According to Professor Naoki Suzuki, the head of the ...
2007-12-29 - Tokyo, Japan. Gwen Thompkins
Sometime early next year, tons of African ivory will be sold at auction to Japan. Despite the international ban on the trade, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia will be allowed a one-time purge of their stockpiled ivory. Conservationists hope the sale won't reignite widespread demand for elephant tusks.
2007-12-29 - Tokyo, Japan.
The frozen carcass of a 37 000-year-old baby mammoth unearthed this summer in Siberia arrived in Japan on Saturday for tests that researchers hope will shed new light on the internal structure of the ancient beasts, an official said. The 1.2m grey-and-brown carcass arrived at Tokyo International Airport on Saturday afternoon, said Mitsuyoshi Uno, an official with the joint Russo-Japanese mammoth-study project that is overseeing the research.
2007-12-18 - Tokyo, Japan. Irie-Sugimoto N, Kobayashi T, Sato T, Hasegawa T., University of Tokyo
The present study explores to what extent Asian elephants show "means-end" behavior. We used captive Asian elephants (N = 2) to conduct four variations of the Piagetian "support" problem, which involves a goal object that is out of reach, but rests on a support within reach. In the first condition, elephants were simultaneously presented with two identical trays serving as the "support", with the bait on one tray and the other tray left empty. In the next two conditions, the bait was placed on o...
2007-11-26 - Tokyo, Japan.
This Christmas, elephants are all set to bring some cheer to Japan. Three Asian elephants have been practicing intensively over the last few weeks to learn "Jingle Bells" to mark the holiday season. The elephants use their trunks to beat, or ring the bells while the Christmas song is played. The Christmas show, in which the elephants will perform, will officially open to the public on December 2.
2005-12-14 - Tokyo, Japan.
A male elephant knocked out a keeper with one of his tusks at a zoo in central Tokyo in what may have been a hormone-driven frenzy, the zoo master said Tuesday. Attie, a 2.2-ton (2.4-U.S. ton) Asian bull at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, struck his keeper Yutaka Kawaharabayashi in the forehead on Tuesday morning, zoo master Teruyuki Komiya told reporters.
2005-06-20 - TOKYO, Japan.
Japanese scientists said Friday that DNA tests have shown that the prehistoric woolly mammoth is more closely related to Asian elephants than to their African counterparts, settling a long-running debate over the lineage of the giant animals that went extinct 10,000 years ago. Nagoya University professor Tomoo Ozawa and his team examined muscle tissue DNA taken from a woolly mammoth excavated in Siberia and determined that the animal and Asiatic elephants branched off from the same ancestor 4.8 ...
2025-03-27 - Chiang Mai, Thailand.
In a united effort to prevent forest fires, a team of three elephants joined over 20 locals in constructing firebreaks in Chiang Mai’s Mae Taeng district on Wednesday. The initiative, led by Phra Kh...
2025-03-27 - Cholamunda, India.
A Wild tusker, known as Kasera Komban, was found dead in abandoned septic tank in Kerala Malappuram. The tusker used to be affectionately called "Kasera Komban" due to its remarkably long tusks, which...
2025-03-18 - Wichita, United States.
The Sedgwick County Zoo announced Monday that 29-year-old African elephant Simunye delivered a stillborn calf following a healthy, full-term pregnancy. This would have marked the first elephant born a...
2025-03-08 - Guwahati, India.
A female elephant calf took birth in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park. The newborn, named Gauri, is the offspring of an elephant named Phulmai, who resides within the protected area of Kaziranga.
2025-03-05 - Trichy, India.
A 60-year-old female elephant named Jaini, who was being cared for at the MR Palayam Government Elephant Rehabilitation Centre in Reserve Forest under the Trichy Forest Division, has passed away. The ...
2025-02-07 - Amboseli, Kenya.
We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Paolo, one of Amboseli’s most famous and cherished elephants. At 46 years old, Paolo’s death marks the loss of a true giant, not only in size but ...
