WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Zoo is adding three new Asian elephants to its herd, and they will make their public debut this week.
The female elephants arrived in May from the Calgary Zoo in Canada. They have been in quarantine for 30 days and will join the zoo’s herd of four existing elephants on Monday.
The new elephants include 39-year-old Kamala, 39-year-old Swarna and 23-year-old Maharani, who is Kamala’s second calf. Kamala and Swarna were born in the wild in Sri Lanka around 1975.
Records show that Kamala and Swarna lived with two of the zoo’s existing elephants, Bozie and Shanthi, at an elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka for a time. Zoo keepers say there’s no way to know if they will recognize each other.
Asian elephants are endangered in the wild.
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