She doesn’t have a name yet, but zoo staff are excited that their newborn giraffe is hitting important milestones like nursing consistently and doing normal giraffe things.
“She was born three weeks ago now and is already growing really fast,” said Brain Frank, the Oklahoma City Zoo’s assistant curator of hoofstock. “First one that we're looking for is that she's able to walk. We hit that milestone within 10 minutes of being born.”
Frank said this birth is monumental for the zoo’s giraffe conservation program because she is the third generation, born to giraffe mom Julu, and grandaughter to the herd’s matriarch, Ellie.
“It's going to allow us to continue to grow our herd and being a calf of Julu’s it's another one in the family,” he said.
It will also allow the OKC Zoo to continue participating in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’s species survival program for giraffes.
Giraffe’s are listed as an endangered species on the Internation Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. Frank said this program helps keep giraffes in the wild while diversifying the pool of our long-necked friends within the AZA system.
Frank said her birth was also perfect timing since the giraffe family was just moved to the zoo’s brand new habitat, Expedition Africa.
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