Weather Hampers Public Debut of Adorable Baby Giraffe (PHOTOS)

Michele Berger
Published: April 15,2015


 

When a new giraffe calf was born at the Dallas Zoo on April 10, temperatures in and around the city stayed above 54 degrees — a good thing considering giraffes don’t do well in the cold. In fact, the mammals have such trouble in chilly weather that they’re susceptible to hypothermia if outside temps drop below 50 degrees, according to the USDA’s Animal Care Program.
Now, weather is hampering the baby’s public debut in the giraffe habitat at the zoo. “Spring is here, which means rain in Texas! In a perfect world, the baby would go out within a week of birth,” the zoo notes on a Q&A page about the giraffe. “However, the rainy weather is stalling that plan. Keepers have to wait until the habitat is no longer muddy for the baby to safely roam the area.”
Millions have already seen the baby, which currently doesn’t have a name. Animal Planet and the Dallas Zoo live-streamed the birth. (See pictures of the new baby in the slideshow above.)
She is the second calf to mother, Katie, who gave birth to Jamie in 2011. Tebego is the father to both calves. “Tebogo is interested in them, but there’s no way of telling if he knows they’re his children,” according to the zoo.
Setting up to film the birth took months. “Giraffes are very inquisitive and have excellent eyesight, so they see even the smallest changes in their world,” so the zoo was careful to introduce each new component slowly, the organization responded to a question about how Katie reacted to cameras in her pen. And when she and her soon-to-be-star daughter weren’t on camera, they were outside “enjoying the Texas sun.”
Katie, Tebego and their babies are all reticulated giraffes, a species not currently under threat, with a worldwide population of more than 100,000 individuals, reports to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. They’re the tallest mammals around and much like human fingerprints, no two giraffe coat patterns are the same, according to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation.
Click through the slideshow above for more baby zoo animals, including a sweet Bornean orangutan born at the Hogle Zoo in Utah and a baby chimp born at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
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