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00:00Mila came November 14, 2013.
00:06She is a very high-profile animal and very much loved throughout the whole of New Zealand.
00:11Mila is a very playful, engaging elephant.
00:15She had been alone for many years.
00:17Mila was the last exotic animal in a circus in New Zealand,
00:20but none of the other zoos in New Zealand would take Mila,
00:23and because that was Helen's mission was to give sanctuary to animals that no one else wanted, she accepted.
00:29Their goal was to find a facility that would take Mila,
00:33where she could spend the rest of her life not alone,
00:36but in a normal social group with other elephants.
00:38The bottom line was if we wanted her to be a stay-alone elephant,
00:42we could have used the funding just to keep her as a lone elephant in New Zealand.
00:47And so when we contacted the San Diego Zoo and asked them if they'd take Mila,
00:52it couldn't have been better. They said yes.
00:55I was hired to basically train Mila for transport,
01:00to get her ready with all of her medical testing,
01:03behaviors she would need to feel comfortable in flight,
01:06and to build a relationship with her that I can then pass on that relationship to her new home.
01:12On the day of the move, Mila was totally ready and she walked right into the crate.
01:18She's a very smart, very courageous elephant.
01:22She wasn't sedated or anything.
01:24We wanted her to have full capacity and to be able to balance herself on the truck and on the plane.
01:30The journey to the airport was just seamless.
01:33The police department looking after us and supporting us.
01:36The trucking company donated his time.
01:39The police had even arranged for the lights to stay green,
01:42so we didn't even have to stop at traffic lights.
01:45Perfect.
01:46She came to the San Diego Zoo on a charter flight, her own 747 from New Zealand.
01:52We'd raised the money to charter a 747-400 converted to a cargo plane.
01:58It was such a joy to be able to just go down, talk to her, fill up her water all the time,
02:04throw us some more carrots and more branches.
02:07It's a joy to be able to detalize the energy you need to do.
02:21All the cars are the ones that we can do for theborne them.
02:23The good news is that the airport is very beautiful and beautiful.
02:26The first is from the north of the coast.
02:29The blue 거예요 is the President.
02:32It's the President.
02:34It's the President.
02:36Because of the relationship that Erin and Al, our trainers had had with her, we were able to take the chains off immediately and get her to walk out of her crate immediately.
02:48And she just started eating in quarantine, behaving normally straight away.
02:55Mila just came out of quarantine. Quarantine lasts about eight weeks because we have to make sure that she doesn't have tuberculosis. And that takes eight weeks to culture.
03:07Mila, go!
03:08So we are getting her used to our facility. So every time they go into a new area, we kind of just let them check it out, we walk them back and forth, show them what it's all about.
03:18And then if she's comfortable with that, we start running her through her regular routine.
03:22So one of the things we do with all seven of our elephants every day is scrub their feet.
03:26So we ran her through that basic procedure that we do every day, and that's just to keep their feet healthy.
03:31And she did really great. Part of it is learning where that foothole is for her to put it through.
03:37She did great.
03:42The other things we like to do when we bring them out there is give them some of their treats and goodies.
03:47So we gave her some broths to eat and also her wheat bran, which helps her digestive system. She likes that a lot. So she knows then that that's a good place. She's going to get treats out there and she's going to want to come in there again.
04:00We're pretty much preparing her for life at the San Diego Zoo.
04:05The next step will be eventually getting her out into her yard where she'll be able to do what the other elephants do, spend most of the day out there, enjoy it.
04:14And then after that, we'll work on introducing her to the herd. And hopefully she'll get along with everybody and become integrated into our herd of five female elephants.
04:23She hasn't seen another elephant for about 30 years. So we really have no idea how she's going to react. So we have given her some of their feces in her stall so she can smell and kind of know.
04:37And some of them she's reacted to, some of them she hasn't. So we'll kind of go from there with visual access and then we'll give them fence line access and hopefully get her out there sometime.
04:48Well, it's important to remember that Mila has been alone for the last 35 years.
04:53And the reason we brought her to San Diego was so she could have the opportunity to socialize with other elephants for the rest of her life.
04:59So we're pretty unsure as to what her reaction would be. And that's just something that we have to take through our power of observation and knowing elephant behavior.
05:06And the first interaction she had with Mary, our dominant elephant of the group, was she was a little unsure as to what Mary actually was.
05:13Having another animal just as big as her on the other side of the fence.
05:18It was a little unsure, a little wary, put her ears out, which is definitely a sign of trying to figure out what that other animal was.
05:26She definitely wanted to interact with Mary, see if Mary was interested in seeing her back.
05:33And a lot of it was really good observations knowing that Mila started to become comfortable with Mary right there with her.
05:40Introducing elephants is not a science. It's something that we have to take day by day, introduction by introduction.
05:47We initially start off by doing elephants in adjoining yards with barriers in between them, generally with small square meshings.
05:55So that way they have the opportunity to touch one another, but it's nothing that can overwhelm.
06:00If the elephants are interested in one another, whether or not it's aggressive, whether or not the elephant is unsure, scared, nervous.
06:08We take that into account as to how long the interaction takes place and what we will do for our next step.
06:15If that continues to go well, we will move the elephants to an area where the barrier between them is a lot more open,
06:22giving them more interaction to touch each other, giving them more access to one another,
06:27which can cause, again, more positive interactions because elephants are very tactile.
06:32They definitely communicate with one another by touching, feeling, communicating, smelling.
06:37And we just watch to make sure that that's comfortable for both elephants.
06:41If they're both together for most of the interaction, that's very positive.
06:45That's something that we do want to see, but also if they decide to walk away,
06:48that's good information for us to gauge whether or not they're still interested,
06:52whether or not they're frustrated with the interaction at that point.
06:55And again, based off of how that goes over the course of a certain period of time,
07:00again, there's no science to it, will help us gauge whether the interactions between barriers
07:05or if we're seeing that the elephants are ready to be together in the same space.
07:11This morning at the San Diego Zoo's Elephant Odyssey, we introduced our 41-year-old African female, Mila,
07:18who came to us from New Zealand with our oldest female Asian elephant, Mary.
07:23And we took Mila out first this morning, let her get comfortable.
07:28Mary walked up to Mila, and they both started eating out of the same tree.
07:32And this is a great behavior to see because they were both calm.
07:36They were both accepting of each other. And those are the type of things that we wanted to see.
07:41And as the morning went on, we saw Mary following Mila around.
07:45And that's pretty normal because Mary's our matriarch of our female group.
07:49And so she's telling Mila that, hey, I'm in charge. I get to eat where I want.
07:53And Mila accepted that and moved on, which is another great behavior.
07:56Female elephants need socialization. They need to be with other elephants.
08:01So by coming here to the San Diego Zoo's Elephant Odyssey, she's going to have a chance to mingle with five other elephants.
08:07And as far as an elephant go, it doesn't get any better than that.
08:11Very happy with Mila's introduction today.
08:13And we added Shaba into the mix, our youngest female African elephant today, to see if her confidence has built up.
08:21Shaba's a very shy elephant. She's generally unsure about newcomers.
08:25Today was one of the first interactions she had by touching Mila without being scared or nervous.
08:31And that's a huge step in the right direction, something that we're very happy about for both Mila and Shaba.
08:37Well, we never know what's going to happen with these introductions.
08:40But Shaba came out and immediately let Mila know that her food is Shaba's food, which is normal for elephants.
08:49And then they ate for quite a while and it was just kind of a standoff to see, you know, you're okay, I'm okay.
08:56It's just getting to know you as far as elephants go.
08:59So our next step now is just to continue this process.
09:02It could take weeks of doing this every day for them to finally start getting close to each other and go,
09:09okay, you're not so big, you're not so scary.
09:12And then we'll also use Mary, who Mila's already developed a relationship with, as maybe an anchor,
09:19somebody to settle things down, which Mary is a matriarch and that's what we would expect.
09:24We put Mary, Shaba, and Mila together for about 15 minutes this morning so they can get settled in.
09:30And then we put Sumithi, the 47-year-old Asian female, in with them in the morning now for a couple hours.
09:35So now Mila is in with a group of four elephants for a couple hours a day and we'll start just easing her into it
09:42and she'll get more comfortable as time goes.
09:44And so far things are going great.
09:46Mila, come.
09:47She's doing well.
09:48She's still, you know, nervous a little bit, but it's really waning a lot.
09:52She's starting to feel more and more comfortable.
09:55They really want to hang out with each other.
09:59It's just a matter of slowly and letting them develop their relationships slowly, methodically,
10:05and we'll do this over the next year.
10:12Debbie is one of our youngest elephants.
10:14She just turned 37.
10:16One way that you can tell Debbie apart from the rest of the group is she does have a small, stumpy tail.
10:21That's something she was born with, so it's not something we're very concerned about.
10:24She is a tall, lean elephant.
10:26You can tell her as well by her very hairy forehead.
10:30She has a lot of potential to interact with Mila and she definitely has a lot of energy.
10:37You can see her moving around the most out there on the exhibit.
10:45So today we introduced her to Tembo, the final African elephant in the female group.
10:50They came out, saw each other, went past each other, and went on to eat.
10:54So it was a very nice start to an introduction.
10:57For months they have had fence line contact, been able to see each other and touch each other
11:01and interact over a fence line.
11:03This is their first day sharing the same physical space.
11:06So it's a very good step.
11:07It means we've prepared them well and they recognize each other
11:10and there's not a real contentious first meeting.
11:13Mila has really, really come a long way from not really knowing what to do with herself
11:20when she met the first couple elephants to really socially becoming more savvy
11:26and learning how to work around the exhibit, being braver when it comes to getting food
11:31when it's thrown into the exhibit, especially tree branches, browse.
11:34She really likes that.
11:36Absolute pleasure to have in our herd.
11:38We think she's doing great here at the Tembo Zoo.
11:43Mila's a very smart elephant and she's able to recognize and watch the other elephants and learn.
11:50So you can see her analyzing the scenario and analyzing the situation and looking and watching all the other elephants
11:57and adjusting her behavior based on what they're doing.
12:05So it's been a very long process and a positive process.
12:08We think Mila is doing really well.
12:10We think she's adapted really well here.
12:12She works great with the keepers and she has learned so much from the other elephants.
12:17And they will take care of her for the rest of her natural life.
12:21So it couldn't be better.
12:47So it's been a easy way to go through the shed oftentimes using Mother's
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