Toronto Zoo welcomes baby giraffe
The Toronto Zoo has launched a $70,000 campaign to support its growing giraffe family as the institution welcomed a baby giraffe recently.
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, Mstari, a six-year-old female Masai giraffe, gave birth to a calf. This is the first offspring for both mother Mstari and father Kiko, a seven-yearold male who came to the Toronto Zoo from the Greenville Zoo in South Carolina in 2015. The calf is affectionately called Baby Long Legs.
“This birth is an important contribution to a genetically healthy Masai giraffe population especially as Mstari is the most genetically valuable giraffe in North America,” Dolf DeJong, chief executive officer of the Toronto Zoo, said.
The pairing of Kiko and Mstari was at the recommendation of the AZA Masai Giraffe Species Survival Plan, a co-operative breeding program among accredited zoos, the Toronto Zoo said in a news release. To celebrate the new addition, the Toronto Zoo Wildlife Conservancy has launched the “Room to Grow” campaign to raise money to support the growing giraffe family.