When Smithsonian “Sidedoor” host Lizzie Peabody bottle-fed Linh Mai, the baby Asian elephant was about the same age as Peabody’s own child.
The experience gave Peabody a personal connection to the story she was reporting for the podcast’s 10th season premiere, which explores the challenges Linh Mai faced during her first year at the National Zoo in Washington DC.
“That was incredible,” Peabody said. “That may have been one of the best days of my life.”
Linh Mai was born in February, the first elephant born at the Zoo in nearly 25 years. Her birth went well, but the situation quickly became more complicated when her mother, Nhi Linh, began displaying aggressive behavior toward her calf.
Keepers eventually had to separate the two and begin bottle-feeding
Linh Mai.
The team had prepared an elephant formula, and initially things went well. But shortly afterward, Linh Mai developed digestive problems and began losing weight.
“She was visibly getting sick,” Peabody said. “And so they had to figure out what to do. So the story is really about the team's interventions and how they worked to save this baby elephant from starvation.”
The care team eventually turned to a fecal microbiota transfer to help restore Linh Mai’s gut microbiome.
For Peabody, reporting the story revealed just how much care went into keeping Linh Mai alive.
Elephants are highly social animals that learn by watching one another, including behaviors surrounding childbirth. But Linh Mai’s mother had not experienced that kind of environment herself, potentially making the birth and bonding process more difficult.
The zoo’s team had prepared for the possibility that something could go wrong, with backup formulas and protocols in place. Staff worked around the clock to figure out what the newborn needed.
Peabody was particularly struck by the commitment of Robbie Clark, the Zoo’s curator of elephants. He slept on a couch in his office for 28 days before Linh Mai’s birth because last winter's crippling snowstorm could have made it difficult for him to get to the Zoo when labor began.
“He didn't go home for almost a month,” Peabody said. “And that's just next level. I mean, people don't do that for their jobs, you know, unless they really care.”
Peabody met Linh Mai once while reporting the episode, preparing her bottle for an 11 a.m. feeding. The bottle was roughly the size of a two-liter soda bottle and required both hands.
Linh Mai eventually grabbed the bottle with her trunk, showing Peabody how it was done.
“She was curious and a little bit bold in the way that I think very young animals are,” Peabody said. “And there was a gentleness to her too. She was breathing on my hand so I could feel her hot breath coming out on my hand and I could feel her little whiskers tickling me.”
The experience resonated with Peabody because she was a new mother herself. Her own baby had struggled to gain weight quickly during the early days of motherhood, making Linh Mai’s struggle with nutrition especially relatable.
“I just felt that question of how do we nourish this baby was so relatable,” she said. “And I almost wish I had known what was going on behind the scenes at that time, because I think I would have felt in good company.”
Despite everything Linh Mai went through, Peabody said she seemed to have emerged with a curious, playful personality. She watched the elephant push around a ball, climb over a buoy and knock around hanging tires.
“She just seems like she's got a great attitude about life,” Peabody said.
The “Sidedoor” episode, which takes listeners behind the scenes of Linh Mai’s first year and the people who helped her survive and thrive, will be released Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What Linh Mai's first year at the National Zoo was really like
