Elephant cam keeps pregnant mother on screen in Dublin Zoo

There is nothing like a pregnant mother to keep you waiting and guessing when the big arrival will come, and the arrival doesn't get much bigger than an 80kg baby elephant.

Staff at Dublin Zoo are on baby watch as they wait for Asian elephant Yasmin to deliver a new calf.

“Any day now” has been the ongoing prediction from Dublin Zoo but a week has past and there is still no sign of the newcomer.

The animal care team want Yasmin to be as comfortable as possible and are even plumping up sand “pillows” for her so she can lean against the mound of sand when asleep.

She is showing all the signs of impending pregnancy, including restlessness at night and attentiveness from the other females in the zoo’s small herd, says assistant director Paul O’Donoghue. Staff have been monitoring her over an “elephant cam” video set up to monitor the elephant enclosure and also the house where the females spend the night. Yasmin might as well be in the Big Brother House given the 24 hour “birth watch roster” set up to make certain things go perfectly when the baby does see fit to arrive.

Most elephant calves are born during nighttime hours, says Mr O’Donoghue. In the wild the night is cooler but it also makes it more difficult for predators to threaten the calf while it finds its feet in the minutes immediately after the birth.

Dublin Zoo has had a busy time of it since the elephant enclosure was completed several years ago. Asha was born in 2007, the first elephant birth at the zoo since its foundation in 1830. Budi followed in 2008 and Yasmin will be the next to deliver a calf, but more will follow.

Two other females are pregnant and both are due within the next few months, so it is a something of a baby boom in the Phoenix park.