Taj, a 68-year old Asian elephant, lifts back her trunk and opens her mouth at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. She is the oldest Asian elephant in captivity in the United States. She came to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in 1978 from Circus Vargas.

2008-04-21 - Vallejo, United States , Linda Goldston

Sixty-eight-year-old Taj likes to nap in the pool, resting her nose on the far end. "She's a year younger than my mom, so she's part of my extended family," said Steve Johnson, supervisor of the park's Elephant Encounter, who has worked with Taj for 28 years. Taj, a former circus elephant who has been at the park since 1978, cares for the younger elephants the same way female elephants do in the wild. One of seven elephants at the park, she weighs 9,000 pounds and stands 8 1/2 feet tall but is s...

 Read full article (external link to the source article)

Share this article

Facebook
Digg
del.icio.us

20 years on Internet!

ELEPHANT NEWS was created on 2001 in Munich, and relaunched in Phnom Penh in 2020, with almost 8 000 links to news articles about elephants on the Internet

A number of articles now also have a cross reference to the elephant database, either for individuals elephants and/or to an article about the location holding

In the right column, you can also see if an elephant has birthday today, and follow the link to more facts!