Episode 05 Raising a Calf

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]I think every moment with Linh Mai is my favorite.

[00:00:03]Linh Mai is a joy to be around.

[00:00:05]We would describe her as sassy, smart, curious.

[00:00:09]She has a lot to say.

[00:00:12]And we're very excited to see how that personality grows over time.

[00:00:15]Throughout the planning process to welcome Linh Mai into the world, we had a lot of different outcomes that we were planning for.

[00:00:21]While ideally, she would be raised by her mom, Nhi Linh that wasn't the outcome that we're seeing today.

[00:00:27]It's not unheard of for moms to reject or have aggression towards their first calf.

[00:00:32]And so our animal care team has become part of her unlikely family.

[00:00:36]And we are providing her with round the clock care to make sure that she gets all the nutrition and care that she needs.

[00:00:42]Linh Mai always has access to interact with other elephants in the herd.

[00:00:46]We are evaluating behavior through “howdy”s, which allows us to watch interactions between barriers to see those positive and negative interactions, to determine who we want to introduce to her next.

[00:00:58]We decided to introduce Swarna and it was fantastic to see, just immediately, it's like she knew that Linh Mai needed a companion. Needed an aunt in her life.

[00:01:08]Now that she's a strong, healthy and resilient elephant, we are moving forward with expanding her opportunities with the herd.

[00:01:15]She's just a fantastic little elephant to get to know.

[00:01:19]Linh Mai brings us so much joy here at the National Zoo, and she has many more milestones to experience.

[00:01:24]We're really excited for everyone to come out and see her in person or on our webcam.