Kirkja is a female African elephant who was born on February 17, 2024 at the Toledo Zoo & Aquarium in Ohio to two wild-born elephants who never met. Initially thought to be a male and named Kirk, the zoo discovered three months after her birth that she was a female and renamed her Kirkja. She was conceived via artificial insemination, which is a key aspect of zoos’ captive breeding programs. The visceral details of captive breeding are not widely known.
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