Five Pregnant Pachyderms!

By Stephen M. Silverman

09/22/1997 at 12:00 AM EDT

This sounds like the opening scene of "Dumbo," starring Mr. Stork: An unprecedented number of elephants -- five, in fact -- are pregnant at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Center for Elephant Conservation outside of Tampa, Fla., it has been announced by Feld Entertainment CEO Kenneth Feld, whose company created the elephant center. The first new member of the trumpet section is due the third week in March. The mother, Icky, 25, weighs 8,594. This will be her third child. The other babies are due, respectively, in November 2001, January 2002, April 2002 and June 2002. The father -- of all of them -- is Charlie, 30, an Asian bull elephant. Cigars all around.