Fewer than 40,000 Asian elephants exist in the world, and their population is in decline, making them an endangered species. The Denver Zoo has been trying to combat that decline by arousing young bulls like Chuck and sending elephant semen across the country.
"This majestic pachyderm, known for his playful and highly social personality, is set to embark on a new journey to start his own family," the zoo wrote in an April 15 press release. "Chuck's departure marks a significant milestone in the ongoing efforts to ensure the survival of Asian elephants, a species facing numerous threats in the wild."
Chuck will be traveling to Houston in a crate, though the Denver Zoo has yet to specify more about his travel plans and how, exactly, he'll get there. Houston is about a fifteen-hour drive from Denver but a two-hour flight — if they can find a big enough plane or teach Chuck to fly with his ears.
"This majestic pachyderm, known for his playful and highly social personality, is set to embark on a new journey to start his own family," the zoo wrote in an April 15 press release. "Chuck's departure marks a significant milestone in the ongoing efforts to ensure the survival of Asian elephants, a species facing numerous threats in the wild."
Chuck will be traveling to Houston in a crate, though the Denver Zoo has yet to specify more about his travel plans and how, exactly, he'll get there. Houston is about a fifteen-hour drive from Denver but a two-hour flight — if they can find a big enough plane or teach Chuck to fly with his ears.
The Denver and Houston zoos are members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, an international group, and are working together on the Asian elephant species survival plan, which was established in the ’80s.
After the death of Mimi, a popular Asian elephant, in 2012, the Denver Zoo dedicated its newly built Toyota Elephant Passage to housing a bachelor herd of elephants, or a group of only young, fertile males. Every week, staff at the Denver Zoo collect semen from five of the six bachelor bulls in a process that involves sticking an arm inside their anus to massage the prostate until they ejaculate, with the semen sent across the country to other zoos.
In the wild, female Asian elephants usually kick bulls out of the herd when they get to sexual maturity because they become rowdy during musth, a period of elevated hormone levels, heightened sexual interest and aggressive activity that can last months.
The Denver Zoo is a hub for elephant semen. It ships that semen to AZA zoos and researchers for study and artificial insemination of female elephants, known as cows. Inseminating female elephants is difficult because they have large, eight-foot vaginal vestibules that are hard to navigate with semen-tipped catheters, and it only occasionally leads to a successful pregnancy.
Part of the reason that the Denver Zoo ships semen is because it's easier and cheaper to move than Asian elephants, which weigh upwards of twelve tons on average. However, natural breeding — as the zoo calls old-fashioned lovemaking — is much more successful than artificial insemination, especially as elephant semen can't survive being frozen.
Chuck, having lived in a bachelor herd throughout his sexual maturity, has never mated with a female elephant, but no one gives him a hard time about it. This will also mark the first time the Denver Zoo ships an Asian elephant to another zoo for mating purposes.
The elephant care team at the Denver Zoo — the same group that massages their prostates — are preparing Chuck for "future reproductive success" and teaching him the "cues and routines" of making babies so he performs adequately, according to the zoo's press release.
The Houston Zoo was actually the first zoo to announce a successful birth via artificial insemination with Denver Zoo goo in 2020, when Winnie, the daughter of Bodhi, was born. It was the first time the Houston Zoo had conceived a baby of any species this way.
In December, the zoo announced another successful insemination in St. Louis with fourteen-year-old Jake impregnating Jade via long distance. That baby will be born late this year or next year (elephant pregnancies last 22 months).
Chuck's new home, the Houston Zoo, is sending a thirteen-year-old Asian elephant named Baylor to the Denver Zoo. Named after the Baylor School of Medicine, the new elephant is the brother of Duncan, a nine-year-old bull who joined the Denver Zoo in April 2023.
Speaking of families, Chuck's half-brother is Jake. Both Chuck and Jake were among the first elephants born through artificial insemination in Canada (Jake was the first-ever Asian elephant born this way in the country). Their dad, Rex, lives in Oklahoma, and both Chuck and Jake came to the Denver Zoo in 2018.
According to the Houston Zoo, Baylor will leave for Denver at the end of April. The Denver Zoo has yet to say whether he will be trained to provide semen for the zoo, but Baylor's brother, Duncan, is the only elephant in the bachelor herd who doesn't participate in the program — partly because he's still young, but also because he chooses not to do it, according to zookeepers.
Chuck's last week in the Mile High City will be the first week of May. His animal care specialists are throwing him a "graduation ceremony" at noon on Thursday, April 25, and the public is invited to come.
Thirteen Asian elephants live at the Houston Zoo, including Baylor. Neither zoo has given any details on the lucky lady that Chuck gets to mate with, but none of the elephants are close to Chuck's age. Sexual maturity for Asian elephants usually occurs between ten and fifteen years of age. The cows at the Houston Zoo are either a few years older or much younger than Chuck, including his four-year-old niece, Winnie.
Although the practice is meant to save the Asian elephant species, semen collection was part of the reason that the Denver Zoo landed on the 10 Worst Zoos for Elephants in 2023 list, created by the national activist group In Defense of Animals.
The Denver Zoo defended itself by pointing out that the elephants volunteer to be pleasured or give up their semen and can walk away from the procedure anytime, like Duncan. They also get fed while their prostates are stimulated. The zoo doesn't make any money from sending elephant semen, and often takes a loss by shipping it.
The Houston Zoo also landed on that list for the fifth time in 2023, accused of overcrowding the Asian elephant enclosure and having the elephants breed with each other.
Baylor and Chuck are expected to get acclimated to their new herds and environments by late May.
