Look for love<br/><span class='hl2'>Elephants are packing their trunks, traveling to ...</span>

ASHA and Chandra don't know what they're in for. To the Asian elephant sisters at the Oklahoma City Zoo, it's just more apples.

The two have been training for weeks, standing still as zookeepers examine their insides in exchange for carrots and apples and salad dressing.

They don't know the examiners are checking their reproductive viability. They don't know they're betrothed to an elephant 90 miles away and that the zoo world is watching the courtship. They don't know how important their impending motherhood is or why their genes are key to the survival of Asian elephants in America.

All they know, probably, is that they're getting more apples.

Asha and Chandra will leave the zoo in June to breed with the male Sneezy at the Tulsa Zoo. Their return hinges on two timelines: conception and construction. If they breed quickly, the females could be back within two years and be the first elephants to give birth at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

But the date of their return depends on whether their new habitat can be finished while they're away. Their new home will be in the $16 million Asia exhibit, a project still in the design phase. The last large-scale project at the Oklahoma City Zoo — Oklahoma Trails — opened three years behind schedule. Zoo officials promise that won't be the case for the Asia project and Asha and Chandra will be home soon.

Oklahoma elephants are key

The decision to breed Asha and Chandra with Sneezy came from the experts who manage the Elephant Species Survival Plan, the nationwide breeding plan that monitors genetics and the elephant population. The effort is led by Mike Keele, deputy director of the Oregon Zoo.

"The long-term goal,” he said, "is for us to develop a sustainable population of Asian elephants.”

Choosing which elephants to breed to sustain the population is based on a set of rankings. Animals are ranked by how well represented their genetics are in the national gene pool, Keele said. Asha, Chandra and Sneezy are ranked highly because they have no living offspring, which means they are recommended for breeding.

Another factor in Asha and Chandra's favor is their age.

Most captive elephants in the United States were imported during the 1950s and '60s, Keele said. Asha, 13, and Chandra, 11, are two of the few young females in the country. The average age of a female Asian elephant in captivity is 36, several years beyond ideal breeding age, according to the Species Survival Plan Studbook. Young elephants are in short supply, and the animals aren't imported from the wild like they were in years past, Keele said.

Brian Aucone, interim director at the Oklahoma City Zoo, said all those factors reinforce the idea that the pairing of Asha and Chandra with Sneezy is a vital match. And a convenient one.

"Ours are very valuable females,” he said, "and it works out great. It's a fellow zoo here in the state. You know, they're only 90 miles away, so it's worked out great that we've had this opportunity to put them together.

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