Who's your daddy?

By GREG LAVINE
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

If Hogle Zoo is successful in jump-starting an elephant pregnancy, it could be years before the father is identified.

German animal-insemination experts have made two attempts to set the zoo's African elephant female _ Christie _ down the road of motherhood as part of a national species-conservation project.

But zoo spokeswoman Holly Braithwaite says it will be at least six months before blood tests reveal whether the elephant is pregnant. A paternity test would have to wait until after the birth.

In 2004, Christie received an ultrasound that showed her 6-foot-long reproductive tract was structurally sound. This week's activities are the first attempts at artificial insemination.

The German team stopped at the zoo in Pittsburgh on Sunday to collect a fresh sperm sample from a male elephant, Braithwaite said. They then carried the sample onto a flight to Salt Lake City.

Genetic material from the Indianapolis zoo also was overnighted as part of the insemination procedure. A total of three samples _ two from Pittsburgh _ were implanted in Christie.

If the pregnancy takes, the German team would return to perform a follow-up ultrasound, which must be done inside the elephant, as the skin is too thick for traditional ultrasound techniques.

Christie has a 2.5-day fertility window that occurs three times a year, and she would carry her offspring for two years.