The Oregon Zoo in Portland is celebrating the weekend birth of a baby Asian elephant that appears strong and healthy — and already has the internet swooning.

The mom, a 30-year-old named Rose-Tu, gave birth to the calf late Saturday afternoon. While the baby appears to be a female, staff will confirm its sex once they conduct their first check-up. For now, they’re giving mother and child a chance to bond uninterrupted.

“Rose is a fantastic mom,” Steve Lefave, who oversees the zoo’s elephant program, said in a statement. “She’s so gentle and protective, and the calf is already nursing well. These are signs that they will have a strong bond, which is exactly what we want to see. We’re ready to help if needed, but so far mom and baby are doing just fine on their own.”

The zoo has yet to announce a name for the calf.

Animal births often spark excitement, but this elephant’s arrival is all the more significant given the threats facing Asian elephants, which inhabit the forests and grasslands of India and Southeast Asia, including Sumatra and Borneo. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species classifies the elephants as endangered due to a population decline of at least 50% since 1945, over the last three generations.

The IUCN estimates that between 30,000 and 50,000 Asian elephants remain in the wild, and attribute their reduced numbers primarily to habitat loss, poaching and disease.

“While populations of Asian elephants in South Asia are believed to have been relatively stable in the recent past, numbers have plummeted in Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Indonesian Sumatra,” the IUCN says.

Stephanie Preston, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies the neurobiology of empathy and altruism, suggested our obsession with cute little critters could have real-world benefits for them.

“The more exposure people have, the more likely they are to consider it important to conserve the spaces where the species live,” Preston said. “We're losing species at an alarming rate at this point.”

Read the full article on Forbes.