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Osnabrück / Hannover (dpa / lni) - After the death of a baby elephant only a few days old in the Osnabrück Zoo, the animal is now to be autopsied.
The body should be brought to the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover on Wednesday, said a zoo spokeswoman.
The bull elephant, which was born last Thursday, was euthanized by the Osnabrück Zoo on Tuesday.
He didn't want to drink and got weaker and weaker.
"In the end we wanted to deliver him from his suffering," said the zoo speaker.
Hand-rearing with a bottle is very problematic for Asian elephants.
In cases where other zoos have tried, the elephants would either have later developed metabolic diseases such as liver damage or developed bone problems, the spokeswoman said.
"Hand-rearing with the bottle is generally difficult, not only because the milk is not mother's milk, but also because of the socialization of the animals."
There is a risk that the animals shaped by humans will never properly integrate into the herd.
The little elephant was the firstborn of mother Sita.
She had tussled her child and wanted to give him the teat too, but the boy didn't want to drink, they said.
The behavior of the herd, which showed no interest in the animal after birth, was striking.
The zoo experts suspect that the animals might have instinctively noticed that the newborn was sick and had no chance of life.
Only in December there were elephants in the zoo: The young animal Yaro is developing very well, according to the information.
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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210217-99-477714 / 2
Press release