EXCLUSIVE: Living Desert Zoo and Gardens welcomes second baby giraffe
Athena Jreij
PALM DESERT, Calif. (KESQ) – The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is welcoming a second baby giraffe, just weeks after the zoo’s Vicki Lou gave birth to a baby girl calf.
Last week, the zoo welcomed a baby boy to mama giraffe, Shelly, and dad, Kelly. The boy is the second calf born to Kelly this year, after mama Vicki Lou gave birth to a baby girl in September.
This week marked the baby girl’s first steps into the habitat, where zoo curators say she’s already exploring and showing off her personality.
“She’s adorable. Absolutely adorable. It’s so exciting to feed them,” Terry Cameron, a visitor from Idaho said.
The calves bring the total number of giraffes on habitat to 13 among two herds, one of the larger collections at the zoo.
African Safari curator, Lucas Barmeyer, says both moms are adapting well to the new babies.
“Vicki Lou is a little more cautious. I think the baby boy who was born to Shelly, he’s starting to get more confident, he seems a little nervous at first and is just, as he’s meeting the other herd members sometimes he can be a little overwhelmed, but now he’s starting to settle. Shelly is a little bit more confident in herself,” Barmeyer said.
Barmeyer says both calves were born to the male breeding bull, Kelly, a 9-year-old giraffe who stands at 18 feet tall.
“He is our breeding bull, so he is a lot larger than our other males.”
With such a large collection, officials say the growth is also supporting conservation around the world.
“Out in the wild, they’re susceptible to poaching, habitat loss, fragmentation as cities and populations are growing. So here at the Living Desert and a lot of zoos in the U.S., we have a reserve population. We will be shipping some giraffe to other facilities, because they’re a part of an ‘SPS,’ or species survival plan. So they’ll go and spread their giraffe genes,” Barmeyer said.
The Living Desert says they’ll be introducing the new baby boy to the habitat this weekend, and hope guests can visit him starting Friday.