A Wild Mother’s Day Celebration

Several new mothers are celebrating Mother’s Day at Walt Disney World a bit differently than the typical vacationing guest. For starters, these new moms aren’t on vacation as they live at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Mother’s Day has a whole new meaning for an elephant, a monkey and a vulture since these Animal Kingdom creatures have given birth this year. The new members of the Animal Kingdom family include:

Tsavo the African elephant born on June 28 after a 21and half month gestation period ( and we think 9 months is long)!  This petite little guy weighed in at 329 lbs at birth.  He is the 4th elephant to be born at Animal Kingdom.

Zahra the Colobus monkey was born in February and is the first birth at Animal Kingdom for this species. Zahra joins 5 other Colobus monkey and can be seen along the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Raising a Colobus monkey is a community effort as everyone pitches in to help care for this youngster.

The final set of “newborns” includes two Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture chicks.  This was quite an exciting event as it was the first vulture birth at either Animal Kingdom or Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Despite their differences from the human counterparts who are celebrating Mother’s Day at Walt Disney World, one thing is the same – the strong mother/baby bond as the new babies learn about their environment. Here’s hoping you have a great Mother’s Day with your own little monkeys!
Photos courtesy of WDW News