Female Asian Elephant Calf Born at the Smithsonian National Zoo

So there are now 55000 and 1 Asian elephants*. I don’t understand the newsworthiness of having an extra Asian elephant joining the other 15000 Asian elephants in captivity.

Wild Asian elephants roam between 100km2 to 1500km2. This elephant will spend a life confined to just how many square km’s?

Direct source with better readability and many pictures:

https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/female-asian-elephant-calf-b...

And even more pictures and info on Asian elephants:

https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/news/get-know-herd-asian-...

I do appreciate that they're explicit about why this matters (genetic diversity, SSP, long-term conservation work) instead of just treating it as zoo PR

> [this individual] will help strengthen the genetic diversity of the Asian elephant population in North America and around the world.

I'm happy for them that there is now a calf after a long time, but this sentence doesn't read as hopeful as the author probably intended

There have been seven Asian elephants born at the St Louis Zoo since 1992.

Whenever someone mentions Asian elephants in American zoos, I remember my visit to Columbus zoo, where they treated the Asian elephants like African elephants. Very dry environment, very little water, feeding them dry hay, just absolutely atrocious treatment.

At last someone addresses it