Safari park celebrates birth of long-awaited elephant

The baby elephant is the first to be born in the safari park's 41-year history

An elephant has been born at West Midlands Safari Park for the first time in its 41-year history.

The male was born after a 22-month pregnancy and weighed 15st 7lb.

Head elephant keeper Andy Plumb said: "This really is fantastic news. The baby is absolutely perfect, just like his mother."

His mother, called Five, was artificially inseminated using frozen semen from an elephant in the South African wild.

Teenage cancer fundraiser Stephen Sutton, who raised more than £3.6m for the charity, met Five, an African elephant, as his bucket list included "hugging an animal bigger than me."

Stephen, who died on Wednesday, said at the time: "She has messy table manners, but I've had worse dates."

The baby was born at 17.30 BST on 5 May.

Hugging an animal larger than himself was on Stephen Sutton's bucket list