- Zoo Miami announced Monday that a female baby giraffe was found dead at the park in Florida on Saturday
- A three-month-old giraffe died after breaking its neck
- Zoo Miami is not sure how the fatal injury occurred since the incident happened unnoticed in an off-camera area
A baby giraffe died in a shocking accident at a Florida zoo over the weekend.
Zoo Miami announced Monday that its baby giraffe, born Dec. 15, was found dead Saturday morning in one of the zoo’s giraffe enclosures.
The zoo’s director of communications, Ron Magill, told the Sun Sentinel that animal care staff found the young giraffe dead around 7 a.m. By then, the animal’s body has entered a state of rigor mortis.
“That tells us he was dead for at least a few hours, probably longer,” he told the news outlet.
The zoo said that an autopsy was performed on the animal, which determined that the young giraffe died after breaking its neck.
A rare flawless giraffe photographed in the wild weeks after the birth of a similar calf at a US zoo
“This was a devastating loss and all procedures are being carefully evaluated to ensure prevention of similar incidents in the future,” the zoo said in a statement.
Zoo Miami added that it was unclear how the young giraffe broke its neck because the incident “happened overnight” and “was not personally observed.” Zoo officials speculated that the animal may have been “frightened,” causing it to “run into a fence” and suffer a “fatal injury.”
“We don’t have any footage in that area of giraffe habitat and that’s something they’re looking at – are they going to be able to put up cameras because we’d certainly like to know what’s causing it,” Magill told Sun Sentinel about why there is no footage of the calf dying.
“We didn’t see any evidence of any kind of predator. For all we know, it could have been a wasp that stung him in the middle of the night and scared him,” he added to the newspaper.
A baby giraffe dies at a zoo in Texas days after the death of its mother
The zoo’s statement on the calf’s death echoes Magill’s comments, noting that the zoo continues to search “for any indication as to what may have led to this very sad incident.”
Zoo Miami noted that the giraffe’s death was an isolated incident and that “no other giraffe in the herd showed any signs of trauma.” The giraffes in the dead calf’s herd have “returned to their normal routines” and keepers are monitoring the animals for “any sign of stress or abnormal behaviour”.
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Zoo officials said counseling will be available to staff following the incident through a partnership with the organization “GRAZE,” which stands for Growing Resilience for Aquarium and Zoo Employees.
According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, the first few months of a giraffe’s life are “the most vulnerable”. The nonprofit also noted that “over 50% of giraffe calves do not survive their first year in some populations.”
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Source: HIS Education