I guess human beings aren’t the only ones who should be offered birth control and abortion to compensate for their reckless sexual behavior. From Reuters:

Sydney’s premier zoo is celebrating the news that its 9-year-old Asian elephant is pregnant, but animal rights groups are shocked that the zoo has let a juvenile elephant fall pregnant.

Allowing such a young elephant to fall pregnant was “the equivalent of allowing your 12-year-old daughter to become pregnant”, said Erica Martin, Asia Pacific Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

“It is completely irresponsible,” Martin said in a statement on Thursday. Martin said that under captive breeding plans elephants should be at least 11-years-old before conceiving.

“Still birth, infanticide and rejection of calves are the main causes of infant mortality and Thong Dee’s age and lack of maternal and social experience make this pregnancy very risky,” Jones [Bidda Jones, chief scientist with Australia’s Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (RSCPA)] said in a statement.

An ultrasound (pictured here) shows the five month old elephant fetus that measures 10 cm so far, with the beginnings of a spine, front and hind legs.