Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Baby Elephant's Tea Party

Nila Utama is one! He is the first elephant born in nine years at the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. A BIG bundle of joy to his mother Nandong and father Chawang at 151kg, the one year old asian elephant is now a whopping 544kg! :p

We were invited to Nila's little tea party where the little one whose name is that of the Palembang prince who founded the kingdom of Singapura, was presented with a giant birthday cake made of carrots, wheat and ice, among other ingredients. Us humans had a mighty delicious elephant shaped chocolate cake and other tea-time yummies.

"The birth of Nila Utama was a significant milestone for us as it underscored the importance of education and conservation of Asian elephants in the wild," said Mr Kumar Pillai, General Manager, Night Safari. "This mini event is not only a birthday celebration for Nila – it also highlights the success of captive breeding programmes like ours and the plight of these beautiful animals in the wild."

The Asian elephant is an endangered animal. There are only between 25 600 and 32750 of them in the wild. Poaching of Asian elephants for ivory and meat remains a serious problem in many countries especially in certain regions of India where some people consume elephant meat. The illegal trade of live elephants, ivory and hides has become a serious conservation problem. You can help by not buying ivory products and spreading the word about the plight of the elephants.

Here's wishing little Nila Utama a very happy birthday and the continuing survival of the Asian elephant!

the kids doing some wild art work for Nila

Dylan enjoying the elephant fondant, he ate the entire elephant without touching the cake! :D

the yummy chocolate cake

my two elephants

we had a lovely tram ride to the elephant exhibit

all the kids were excited to meet Nila!

here he comes with his mummy! and there's the huge birthday cake prepared for him by the zoo






Kayden just recovered from HFMD thus he wasn't very chirpy :(

Dylan trying to feed his "elephant" peanuts :p

cheeky bugger!


the boys loved their elephant plush






2 comments:

Elaine said...

There's something really sweet about boys holding plush animals - like they'll grow up to be really good men who will be gentlemenly and kind. haha..

Unknown said...

Haha... I like Dylan's wrinkling of the nose pose! Is he pretending to be a baby elephant too? Nice photos and blog post. :)