'Missed your handsome face': Cincinnati Zoo elephant returns after years in Columbus

A familiar friend is back at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden .

"Beloved" bull elephant Sabu returned to the zoo Friday after spending almost two years at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium .

Sabu fans flooded a Facebook announcement from the zoo with comments such as "Welcome home Sabu!" and "We've missed your handsome face!!"

Sabu is back after spending almost two years with Columbus Zoo’s herd! https://cincinnatizoo.org/beloved-bull-elephant-returns-to-cincinnati-zoo/

Posted by Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden on Friday, June 28, 2024

Sabu moved to Columbus in November 2022 to try to breed with three eligible female elephants.

“Sabu is one of the most genetically valuable males in the North American population of Asian elephants and has no living offspring," said Cincinnati Zoo’s director of animal care, Christina Gorsuch, in a release, "which is why it made sense to send him to a Zoo with young females while his new habitat, Elephant Trek, was under construction.”

The ten-thousand-pound elephant "did his best" to reproduce with the Columbus elephants, the zoo said. Did he sire any offspring there? "We don't know yet!." zoo officials said. "Our fingers and trunks are crossed!"

Sabu will have another chance to breed now that he's back in Cincinnati. Zookeepers hope he will mate with the resident two young female elephants, Mai Thai and Schottzie.

Sabu is also expected to get along well with the other elephants. "We’re also confident that Sabu will do well with the boys," Gorsuch said. "He really hit it off with one of the young males at the Columbus Zoo.”

Sabu will stay in the brand-new Elephant Trek , which is the largest habitat in the zoo's history and features an elephant barn structure, yard, pool and a giant mural. The five-acre habitat will also be home to the other elephants as well as Asian small-clawed otters, siamangs and birds native to Asia.

The Elephant Trek will be open to visitors in the early fall.

Sabu arrived in the United States in 1991. He sired two calves, one at Missouri's Dickerson Park Zoo and one at the Cincinnati Zoo, but both animals died from the virus Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus – EEHV .

The virus is still a major threat to the North American elephant population, but the Cincinnati Zoo has taken several measures in an attempt to prevent Cincinnati Zoo elephants from falling sick with the virus.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: 'Missed your handsome face': Cincinnati Zoo elephant returns after years in Columbus