Giraffes and Big Canoe (Ted's Blog)

Saturday I went up to Big Canoe to visit Mom, Carol, Bob, David, and Andrew who are staying all week as well as Jeb, Kathy, Kelly, and Claire who were just staying the weekend. But first I went straight to the zoo where it was announced this week that a baby giraffe was born. At least that's when I heard about it in the AJC, but actually it happened on July 13. In the wild, giraffes have to be able to walk pretty quickly or they will be eaten. So they come out pretty big already, and this "baby" is already six feet tall. It's amazing they survive at all given the drop from the mother which is also six feet.

I wanted to get to the zoo early so I could get to Big Canoe by lunchtime, but also because I knew it would be hot and the animals are most active in the morning after they get out of their cages and into their zoo habitat. The baby giraffe stayed in the stable until Thursday and was allowed back into the stable if the mother didn't want to go out. They kept the few other animals in the safari exhibit out of the habitat just in case, including the father and another female giraffe.

I got there about 15 minutes after opening and went straight to the giraffe exhibit. There were about 15 people there waiting for the moment, but the zookeepers were still getting the area ready and there were no giraffes to be seen. I waited around a little while and decided to go to the sun bear exhibit, which is new and I have never seen before. The bear was asleep, but at least he/she seems to have a decent amount of room (there are two, but I only saw one).

Then I headed back over to the giraffe exhibit and was in luck because the giraffes had been let out of their stable which is in the very back of the exhibit and behind a rock. The mother came out with the baby close behind, but they just milled around in that area. They both had that awkward yet graceful walk of giraffes and for the most part the baby looked just like a regular giraffe except smaller with what seems like a shorter neck.

After a short walk out, but nowhere near the front of the exhibit, they walked back to the fence and waited to be let back into the stable. There weren't even that many people around to see it and I had to really zoom in to get pictures.

After that I went to look at the Geiko gecko exhibit, but that turned out to be just two geckos and a little bit of information about them and how they are able to walk up walls. I dropped by the giraffes one more time but it was still empty and headed up to Big Canoe.