Dalip — believed to be the oldest male elephant in the United States and an icon at the Miami zoo dating back to its original Key Biscayne location — died Thursday at his home in Zoo Miami after months of declining health and weight loss. He was 56.
After a birth in captivity in India, Dalip arrived in South Florida as a calf in the 1960s. He was the only surviving mammal from the original Crandon Park Zoo, a county facility that moved to expanded quarters in South Miami-Dade in 1980.
Dalip, who stood more than 10 feet tall and weighed more than 10,000 pounds at his healthiest, lived there for his adult life, except for a three-year residence in a Central Florida elephant sanctuary in the 1990s while Dade County rebuilt its zoo after Hurricane Andrew.
Read more at our news partner The Miami Herald.
