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Her Debut
By October, her original due date, more than 100,000 people had visited the rambunctious and spirited calf, but she still didn't have a name.
"This 175-pounder has great motor skills and is one of the most unique calves I've seen," said longtime elephant keeper Roger Henneous. "She's blowing bubbles with her trunk, skipping and acting very feisty. All she needs now is a name."
The zoo received thousands of suggestions from the public and whittled the choices down to five: Asha, Koofed, Rose-Tu, Jorda or Song.
After a public vote, the calf was named Rose-Tu in honor of her mother and grandmother, Me-Tu and Rosy.
Her Pregnancy
In 1994, lacking the space to house another bull elephant - and unable to risk the 50 percent chance that a new calf would be male - the zoo suspended its elephant-breeding program. After Hugo's death in 2003, space was once again available, but breeding was still not an option since the zoo's two remaining male elephants, Packy and Rama, were genetically related to the females.
It was now possible, though, for the zoo to acquire an unrelated bull elephant on a breeding loan, and in June of 2005 Tusko arrived, on loan from a California facility. He and Rose-Tu were introduced in the fall of 2006. Rose-Tu got along well with Tusko and was receptive to his advances, and later that year she became pregnant with her first calf.
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