Elephant Celebrates 63rd Birthday With Festive Fruit Cake at Perth Zoo

10,711 次觀看・4 年前

Tricia the Asian elephant celebrated her 63rd birthday by enjoying a specialty cake and meeting visitors at Perth Zoo in Western Australia on January 24.

The zoo said employees made the “much-loved matriarch” two large cakes, made out of frozen bran and fruit and shaped into the number 63. Zoo staff, volunteers, and visitors gathered around to watch Tricia enjoy her birthday treat.

“Tricia is a true Perth icon and we are not surprised that so many people wanted to spend her birthday with her,” Kirsty Carey, the zoo’s senior elephant keeper, said.

Carey said that while Tricia has slowed down throughout her senior years, she’s given regular deep-tissue massages to help combat age-related strains. Wild Asian elephants can live into their mid-50s, while elephants in captivity have lived past 80 years old, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

“I’ve shared many treasured moments as Tricia’s keeper over the last 16 years and I’ve seen the impact she has on the people meeting her, she has moved many of them to tears,” Carey said. Credit: Perth Zoo via Storyful