Sedgwick County Zoo welcomes third baby elephant

The video above aired on April 22, 2025.
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – The Sedgwick County Zoo welcomed its third baby elephant this week.
The African elephant calf was born early Tuesday morning to mother Arusi after 651 days of gestation. The average gestation period for an elephant is 18-22 months. The zoo has not yet confirmed the calf's gender.
'We are thrilled to welcome a third healthy calf,' said Katie Muninger, elephant manager at Sedgwick County Zoo. 'Three calves and three first-time moms have us all on our toes, but we're learning so much about the herd's social structure and each individual personality as we all settle into the new dynamic.'
The new calf joins Bomani, born April 10, and Kijani, born April 14. The zoo says Bomani is already excited and curious about his new herdmate.
'Bomani, along with mom Talia and Simunye were present for the birth and have been a supportive presence for Arusi,' the zoo said in a news release. 'Kijani, his mother Xolani, and other herd members have had the opportunity to see the new arrival, but they are not together in the same space at this time.'
Meet Chili: Lee Richardson Zoo welcomes giant anteater
In April 2024, the SCZ announced that five elephants were pregnant after introducing Callee, a new male, to the herd in May 2023.
While paternity tests take time, the zoo says there's a good chance all three calves share the same father and are half-siblings.
'In alignment with breeding recommendations from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums African Elephant Species Survival Plan, these additions to SCZ's herd are a reflection of the Zoo's commitment to support the health and sustainability of African elephant populations in North America,' the zoo said in the news release.
Scott Newland, the zoo's president and CEO, previously said that if the pregnancies were successful, not only would they be the first elephants ever born in Kansas, but they would be the first zoo to have five African elephant births in a single year. Unfortunately, one of the pregnancies ended in a stillbirth in March.
Visitors can expect to see at least one calf in the outdoor habitat daily, weather permitting.
The zoo plans to release the name and gender of the calf live at 9 a.m. on the Today Show.
For more information about the SCZ, visit their website or follow the zoo on Facebook.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

National Geographic

2 hours ago

• National Geographic

Why Puerto Rico should be your next food destination

Steam rises off the mound of fried green plantains in front of me. Pablo Pont Ruiz, my guide here in Old San Juan, instructs me to grab my pilón y maceta (mortar and pestle) and start mashing. I have Puerto Rico's unofficial national dish, mofongo, lying deconstructed on my plate — and with the plantains piping hot and marinated, cooked chicken and traditional ajillo garlic sauce at the ready, it's time to start assembling. I'm at El Patio de Sam, a restaurant just steps away from the towering Catedral de San Juan Bautista, the second-oldest church in the Western Hemisphere. Pablo and I get to work, surrounded by families and holidaying Americans seated at yellow and blue tiled tables in the venue's titular open-air patio. 'Mofongo is a blend of Puerto Rico's historic identities,' Pablo explains. The first of these influences can be seen in the tools we're using to create the dish. The tall wooden mortar, known as a pilón, and its wooden pestle, the maceta, he says, date back to the Taínos, the Indigenous people who inhabited the island for hundreds of years before the Spanish arrived in 1493. The Taínos used these tools for mashing medicinal herbs and they remain everyday kitchen essentials. Crushing the plantains is tougher than expected. We're aiming for a consistency that's similar to mashed potato, Pablo says. As they come together, a sharp garlic smell of the ajillo wafts up from the bottom of the pilón, merging into the mash. The plantains used in mofongo have their origins in the Spanish colonists who brought the starchy vegetable to Puerto Rico from the Canary Islands in the early 1500s. Puerto Rico was under Spanish rule for more than four centuries before the island was ceded to the US in 1898, and this influence is still very much visible in Old San Juan, from the rainbow-coloured, colonial-style architecture to the impressive coastal fortifications. However, the dish itself is African, brought to Puerto Rico during the Atlantic slave trade and based on the West African staple, fufu. Pablo tells us that mofongo was a hearty dish built to sustain enslaved Africans in Puerto Rico, often constituting the only meal of the day. The bar at Cocina Abierta in San Juan serves refreshing cocktails inspired by the area. Ask for the Wild Card, and the bartender will create you a surprise drink. Photograph by Marisol Pesquera Mofongo is originally African, brought to Puerto Rico during the Atlantic slave trade and based on the West African staple, fufu. It was a hearty dish built to sustain enslaved Africans in Puerto Rico, often constituting the only meal of the day. Photograph by Giovan Cordero Nowadays, Puerto Ricans save this laborious recipe for holidays and special occasions. 'Something that was created out of necessity is now eaten purely for indulgence,' Pablo says. We begin the next step in our process, pushing the maceta into the middle of the garlicky mash and creating an even crater for the pre-prepared chicken. With the chicken added, it's time for the hard part: Pablo instructs us to flip the pilón over quickly, to release the mofongo onto the plate. Feeling the pressure, I take the pilón, flip it and then carefully lift it away. The mound I've left on the plate stays upright, but the walls of my plantain castle look more like ruins. There's a hole on the left side, leaving my chicken exposed, and I spot a fully intact plantain round left behind in the corner of my pilón. Not perfect, but still enticing. I take a bite of the chicken coated in plantain and enjoy comforting flavours of meaty mash, garlic and salt. To complete the meal, there's a hearty side of rice and beans, and icy pina coladas as well. Another Puerto Rican invention, the cocktail's combination of white rum, coconut cream and pineapple juice is a celebration in its own right. It's a proper festive feast. Flower power: Frutos Del Guacabo 'This is going to be a two-minute roller coaster,' warns Efrén David Robles, owner of small, family-run farm Frutos Del Guacabo. He hands me a tiny yellow bulb plucked from one of the bushes lining the farm's entryway and, with his encouragement, I cautiously bite into half the flower. A moment later, the numbness sets in; it feels like I'm at the dentist. The flower is called a lemon drop, Efren explains. He grows it here at Frutos Del Guacabo in Manatí, on the north side of Puerto Rico, and sells it to restaurants across the island. Chefs create a sorbet with the flower, which acts as a palate cleanser between dishes. As my mouth starts to recover, I can see why — the numb, fizzy sensations subside and I'm left with a clean, citric taste. Flowers became a major focus for the farm following Hurricane Maria, which struck the island as a Category 4 storm in 2017. Growing the plants helped pollinate the farm's produce after the hurricane, Efren explains, noting that the vivid colours and sharp flavours are popular with chefs and bartenders. He hands me a bright orange nasturtium, which he suggests eating, stem and all. For such an elegant-looking flower, the fierce, peppery flavour is quite shocking. Standing in the hot sun of the farm's driveway, we cool off with scoops of mango and goat's cheese sorbet, topped with toasted passionfruit seeds. Everything grown here has a purpose, nothing goes to waste. We sample pickled watermelon rind — making use of the white flesh sitting just underneath the fruit's green skin — and spicy watermelon chutney, made from the juicy red centre. Finally, Efren shows me the greenhouse, where the team grows purple lettuce, mustard greens and coriander using hydroponic methods. What began as a small farm now acts as a cooperative for other farmers on the island, aiming to reduce Puerto Rico's dependence on importation. The island imports 85% of its food — an issue that became even more apparent after Maria. 'Teaching people how to grow food, for us, that's a rebel act,' Efren says. The Hacienda Tres Ángeles coffee farm sits in the hills of Adjuntas, about two hour's drive from the capital. Every acre on the plantation holds 1,000 coffee bushes. Photograph by Getty Images, Brigster Coffee culture: Hacienda Tres Ángeles 'Everyone thought we were nuts,' says Naomi Gomez Robles, as we walk along the dirt road encircling the 100-acre coffee farm she owns with her husband, Juan Melendez Mulero. Naomi, a former nurse from the Bronx, and Juan, a mechanical engineer who grew up on the island, had never farmed before 2012 when they opened Hacienda Tres Ángeles. Meaning 'three angels' — an ode to the pair's three daughters — the farm sits in the hills of Adjuntas, about two hour's drive from the capital. It's been 13 years since Tres Angeles launched, and it's thriving: every acre on the plantation holds 1,000 coffee bushes. Naomi leads the way through rows of coffee bushes and plantain trees. She draws my attention to a cluster of green coffee pods hanging off one of the bushes. Among them, several red pods stand out. 'These are ripe and ready to be picked,' she explains. Harvest season lasts from August to December — overlapping with Puerto Rico's hurricane season (June to November). When Hurricane Maria hit, it wiped out 80% of the harvest and the farm went nine months without power. In support, people around the world placed orders for coffee. 'That's how we were able to survive,' says Naomi. The hacienda grows Caturra beans, a variety of Arabica. During production, they're separated by size, as each measurement creates its own roasting profile. Smaller beans produce a rich, chocolate taste, while larger beans yield bold, fruity flavours. We taste the farm's signature medium-to-light roast while sitting on the veranda, gazing out at the hills and breathing in the mountain air. The coffee is sweet, fruity and smooth — even a diehard latte fan like me has no trouble drinking it black. Naomi and Juan hope to change mindsets about farming — they want to challenge the idea that it's just a recourse of the poor or uneducated. 'Farmers are very important,' Naomi says, explaining that her grandfather's Puerto Rican dream was to own land and provide for his family. 'He was very proud of what we achieved,' she continues. 'It's something I hope to pass on to my daughters — the importance of going back to the land.' Puerto Rico was under Spanish rule for more than four centuries before the island was ceded to the US in 1898, and this influence is still very much visible in Old San Juan. Photograph by Getty Images, P. Lubas Coastal traditions: El Burén de Lula We drive through the quiet, rural roads of Loíza on Sunday morning, before arriving at a one-storey, wooden building. I look around confused, thinking we're making a U-turn. Instead, we're welcomed into a restaurant with a busy open-air kitchen and greeted by a team of women prepping for the morning ahead. Soon, cars begin filling the driveway, parking out along the road, and eager visitors order fried Puerto Rican classics. There are simple corn arepas, patties with a cornbread-like texture, and empanadas de jueyes, their juicy crab filling coated in a mix of green plantain and yautía — a popular island root vegetable with a nutty, earthy flavour. We sample homemade sweet tortillas, which combine sugar, vanilla, coconut milk and salt to create a thick, sweet crepe. They're perfect with dulce de coco — coconut candy — spooned from small plastic cups. Find empanadas de jueyes at El Burén de Lula, with juicy crab filling coated in a mix of green plantain and yautía. Photograph by Rafael Bisbal The piña colada has stirred controversy since 1954, when two rival bartenders at San Juan's Caribe Hilton Hotel both claimed to have concocted the drink. Photograph by Alamy, Andrey Pustyakin Located about a 35-minute drive from San Juan in the coastal municipality of Loíza, El Burén de Lula has been serving these dishes for decades. In the heat of the kitchen, one of the chefs keeps her eyes on the fried treats left on the grill, tucked into plantain leaves. Every so often, she lifts the leaves to check if the dough is perfectly golden and ready to serve. In an adjacent building, we find Lula herself sitting on the couch. 'The head still works, but the body, not so much,' she says. Lula, whose full name is María Dolores De Jesús, may cook less than she once did but she still has plenty of stories to tell. She speaks to me about her mother, who made these dishes when Lula was a child, and her father, who worked harvesting coconuts from trees. Her Spanish flows quickly and with so many interjections, my translator struggles to get a word in edgeways. But it doesn't matter; she's a magnetic presence and I'm captivated. El Burén de Lula only opens on Sundays now — and the occasional Saturday, when there's a national holiday. And it's best to get there early, I soon learn. Orders start coming in around 11am and by 1pm, they're sold out. This article was created with the support of Discover Puerto Rico. Published in Issue 28 (summer 2025) of Food by National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).

New York Post

16 hours ago

• New York Post

This is the No. 1 thing every marriage must have in order for it to last, expert reveals

A Harvard professor revealed the No. 1 thing every marriage should have for it to last a lifetime. Since superficial things like looks, money and chemistry can fade over time — the one thing that a long-lasting marriage should be built on is friendship, according to Arthur Brooks, a social science expert and professor who devoted his career to studying love, originally reported on by the Daily Mail. 'The goal of your marriage is not passion, it's friendship. This is the goal, you must be close friends, ideally best friends, with your spouse,' Brooks said during his appearance on The Drive podcast. Advertisement Arthur Brooks devoted much of his career to studying love. Arthur Brooks/Facebook 'One of the most important things for a happy life is a partnership with somebody who will be the last person who you set eyes on as you take your last dying breath…' During the conversation, Brooks also rattled off some tell-tale signs that indicated a marriage is headed for divorce — and loneliness is one of them. Advertisement 'One of the greatest predictors of divorce is partners who are lonely while living together and this [means] that the only thing you have in common is your kids,' he explained. Oftentimes, couples spend much of their marriage focusing only on their kids, and when they grow into adults who eventually flee the coop — they're left feeling empty and lost, unsure what their marriage consists of outside of raising their children. Having a strong partnership is key to making a marriage last. LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS – '[When] that one point of commonality disappears and you're sitting across the table blinking at each other during dinner and not talking because you literally have nothing to talk about,' the expert pointed out. Advertisement 'They [couples] should develop philosophical interests in common, they're talking about deep things. There's got to be something bigger than 'Did you change his diaper?' because that's not going to be in common forever and you're going to be lonely in your relationship.' In addition to having things in common with your spouse that don't revolve around your kids — having strong relationships outside of your marriage is also key. 'You've got to work on these things for sure for a lot of reasons besides the fact that it's just healthy and good. You might, at some point, be left alone if you're widowed. You don't want to be alone under those circumstances,' he explained. Advertisement These aren't the only things to maintain a healthy marriage — separate bathrooms, or at least more space in one, could also do the trick. Sharing a bathroom with her husband was causing turmoil in Debbie Wiener's marriage, so she decided to have a 'bathroom divorce.' 'As you get older, your gastrointestinal needs change,' Wiener told The Post. 'My husband's habits didn't age well. One toilet was not cutting it.' This frustrated wife resolved her bathroom sharing woes by creating a bathroom suite, with two of everything. 'All my neighbors lined up to see my bathroom. Every time I tell a woman about my bathroom, she is, like, 'OMG I want that.' This is the next step after a sleep divorce. You can share a vanity without sharing cooties. You can share a wet room but not a toilet,' she said.

San Francisco Chronicle​

18 hours ago

• San Francisco Chronicle​

Can a new art space succeed in San Francisco's struggling Tenderloin?

TnT Art Lab isn't officially open, but people walking by its future location on Turk and Taylor streets in the Serif building are already curious. Video installations, paintings and textile works are already on view in the unfinished space that often draws passersby to peer inside. Bradley McCallum, founder of the project through his 36-year-old nonprofit Conjunction Arts, usually invites them inside. 'Our goal is to really activate the corner with regular viewing hours and events,' said McCallum, a multimedia artist whose work is rooted in social practices and activism. McCallum envisions TnT as a hub that will bring social art to the Tenderloin, a genre focused on making work that emphasizes collaboration, community building and human impact. In social art practice, creativity is viewed as a catalyst for positive change and collective transformation. To that end, McCallum's plans include an international artists residency, exhibitions, a dialogue series and other community programming. The 2,000 square foot space is already framed out for different areas, with studio space, a media library and a flexible gallery all key to the overall mission of TnT Art Lab. McCallum also knew it was important to build a kitchen. 'One way we come together as a community is through food, and being able to gather for a cup of tea or for a glass of wine,' said McCallum. 'This is about standing beside people and not in front of them, joining a community and joining the table.' 'The idea is that TnT can be this open, porous space and exist as part of that larger arts network too,' said Natasha Becker, McCallum's wife and a member of Conjunction Art's Board of Directors. 'It's an amazing opportunity to be one of the nodes in this already rich network.' McCallum and Becker relocated from New York after she accepted a position at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as its first-ever curator of African art. He recalls driving from his studio at the Minnesota Street Project through the neighborhood in the evenings during a bleak moment of the city's pandemic recovery. 'Bearing witness to some of the most visible and difficult challenges of homelessness, drug addiction and poverty on Sixth Street left a lasting impression,' said McCallum. 'Here was an opportunity, adjacent to some of the most difficult challenges, to invite artists to come in and look more deeply at these problems instead of turning a blind eye.' McCallum learned the space was available in the fall of 2024 through gallerist Jonathan Carver Moore. His eponymous gallery, on the Market Street side of the Serif, has helped bring new life to the building since opening in March 2023, with shows that often spotlight LGBTQ+, female and Black artists. In January, McCallum began fundraising with a dinner in the space during San Francisco Art Week. He later hosted a closing party in May for TnT's benefit auction, which featured works by local artists including McCallum, Arleene Correa Valencia, Michele Pred and Reniel Del Rosario as well as Nigerian textile artist Daàpo Reo, Lebanese painter Hiba Kalache and South African photo artist Zanele Muholi (who is on the organization's advisory committee). The auction raised $108,600, with $50,000 dedicated to building out TnT's space and the remainder shared with the artists. At a time when institutional and government financial support for the arts is grinding to a halt, McCallum has mostly sought private donors — though TnT has received an SF Shines grant for $10,000 and a grant from the Mid-Market Alliance for $5,000 for their graphic window display. (He notes TnT Art Lab's website donation page is open.) Joy Ou, president and CEO of the Serif's developer Group I, said she has long believed in the Tenderloin's potential for the arts. She recently sold the neighboring Warfield Building for $7.3 million to the Community Arts Stabilization Trust and KALW Public Media. Plans for the nine-story building center around Warfield Commons, a hub for media, journalism and literature. KALW will occupy two floors, while the CAST will manage the property and occupy one floor. For all its challenges, arts in the Tenderloin have been on an upswing in recent years. In 2023, experimental art and performance space Counterpulse completed a $7 million fundraising campaign and entered into a partnership with CAST, enabling the nonprofit to buy its longtime building at 80 Turk St. The Tenderloin is also part of the Compton's Transgender Cultural District, which was established in 2017 to recognize the historic trans and queer population in the neighborhood. 'It feels like a very exciting time for the neighborhood, and for arts in the neighborhood,' said McCallum. 'There is a synergy that can be created between all these things.' When plans with the Magic Theatre to take over the space at 67 Turk St. as part of the building's community benefits package fell through, Ou said she began looking for an organization that would bring steady foot traffic. 'I told Brad, it's a 24/7 activation that's needed here,' said Ou. 'It needs that social justice type, like him.' Ou, a board member at the Museum of Craft and Design in Dogpatch and advisor for the Luggage Store Gallery on Sixth and Market, said she was familiar with McCallum's 2024 painting series 'Inescapable Truths: James Foley's Indelible Legacy,' which transformed video of the late journalist murdered by ISIS in 2014 into paintings with augmented reality components. That work, she said, confirmed for her that TnT was a fit for the building. 'For anybody who takes this on, they have to believe in the arts,' Ou stressed. 'You have to be a strong artist and you have to understand how this community works.' Ou has promised McCallum a 10-year, rent-free lease on the space if he can raise the $175,000 needed to complete the buildout. But she didn't just work with McCallum on favorable lease terms, she made a $25,000 donation to TnT from her personal foundation and joined the organization's advisory committee. So far, McCallum has raised $125,000 toward completing the space and is seeking an additional $350,000 for the first year's programming. He hopes to open TnT with a show featuring Bay Area artist Hector Zamora and Muholi this fall. 'We are trying to revitalize downtown, including Mid-Market,' said Ou. 'And how do we do that? It's by bringing art.'