Gabi (born 10 December 2005), also known as Boon-Chooi, is the first elephant conceived in Israel through artificial insemination. His 6-hour birth was viewed by over 350,000 people in 108 countries via live web streaming on the website of the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, which coordinated the pregnancy and birth through its elephant artificial insemination program. In 2010, Gabi was moved to the Gaziantep Zoo in Turkey. Background The Asian Elephant enclosure at the zoo was constructed in 1993 with the help of Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek's Jerusalem Foundation, which also raised funds to bring in female Asian elephants from Thailand at a cost of $50,000 apiece. The zoo obtained its bull elephant as a 5-year-old in September 2001 from the Ramat Gan Safari. The zoo named its bull elephant "Teddy," and one of its female elephants, "Tamar," in honor of the mayor and his wife. However, attempts to mate Teddy with the female elephants did not produce a natural birth. After years of research and in response to requests by other organizations for the zoo to take part in a trial, Dr. Gabi Eshkar, chief veterinarian of the zoo, initiated the elephant artificial insemination project. Tamar was selected for the project and her reproductive cycle was closely monitored. When the timing was right, sperm was obtained from Emmett, a bull elephant living in the Whipsnade Wild Animal Park in Bedfordshire, England, and flown to Israel on dry ice. The pregnancy was achieved after four tries over two years. The project was carried out in conjunction with a team from the Reproduction Management Institute for Zoo Biology and Wildlife Research of Berlin. At age 20 Tamar was considered a high-risk pregnancy case, as elephants normally begin conceiving between the ages of 12 and 15, and this was Tamar's first pregnancy. Throughout the 21-month pregnancy, dozens of ultrasounds were taken of the elephant's long reproductive system; some of these ultrasounds were published on the zoo's website to whet public interest. Physicians at the obstetrics and gynecology department of Hadassah Medical Center analyzed blood samples to monitor the pregnancy and predict the onset of labor, which they pinpointed to the day. Birth and early life The birth of Gabi was viewed by over 350,000 people in 108 countries via live web streaming on the zoo's website. The veterinarians halted the webcast at the 4-hour mark, fearing complications from labor. After consulting with two