Tisa the Masai giraffe getting a lift to Florida
At age 1, the 9-foot-tall animal will hitch a ride in a specialized transit crate
Barely over a year old and already 9 feet tall, Tisa is on the verge of being thrust out of Eden.
The Masai giraffe at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk will be moved any day now to a zoo to find a possible mate. Animals born in captivity are frequently relocated once they reach breeding age, and Tisa’s journey is designed to protect the genetic diversity of her species.
The Virginia Zoo rarely announces the dates of transfers and exact destinations — the receiving zoo usually does that — but zoo representatives have revealed part of the plan.
Emily Spence, the zoo’s assistant curator of Africa, said giraffes can begin breeding shortly after they turn 1 year old, but typically will not breed until they are closer to 2 or 3. Still, it is better to move them when they’re younger, she said, “just because of the height kind of thing.” Companies that transport animals use specialized cargo units; units for giraffes look like tall horse trailers. Getting the animals inside can be tedious. The giraffes are led or coaxed in, and the shape of the trailer encourages them to sit.
Tisa and her mother, Imara, nuzzled on a recent sunny afternoon, rubbing their necks together.
Mother and daughter looked into each other’s eyes. Tisa is Imara’s ninth calf; in Swahili, “tisa” means “nine.”
Nearby, Tisa’s half brothers, Mchanga and Henry, walked close to the fence. Their father, Billie, died in January after having sired between 16 and 18 calves. He was 21, a ripe old age for a male. Females often live into their mid-20s in captivity while males rarely survive past their 18th birthday. Henry, the baby of the herd, was born in August. Mchanga will turn 2 in December. Their 9-year-old mother, Noelle, and Imara tower
above their kids. The adults are somewhere around 16 feet tall; exact measurements are hard to get.
“They get very skittish,” Spence said. “So, measuring tape would just freak them out.”
Even slight adjustments to their environment can make the animals nervous. When zookeepers clean the chute that connects the giraffes’ inside quarters and the outside viewing area, the animals take a while to reenter the walkway, Spence said.
“They all just stare at it for a while. It’s just clean. They’ve seen it clean before. But with giraffes, you have to have a lot of patience,” she said. “They tend to get very overstimulated by new things and new things have to be added gradually.”
Tisa’s move will be an adjustment, but she isn’t expected to suffer any longterm trauma. It reflects the process giraffes experience in the wild when they leave their mothers after being weaned. In Florida, Tisa’s acclimation will include a 30- to 60-day quarantine to ensure she is healthy and then a gradual introduction to her new herd. And she’ll most likely prefer the Florida heat, Spence said, which will be more akin to a giraffe’s natural African habitat.
“These guys are not very cold-tolerant.”