As a giraffe in New York is gaining thousands of fans while she expects the imminent birth of her calf, a giraffe in Seattle is also expecting a calf, just a little less publicly.
Tufani and Dave will welcome their first calf to the Woodland Park Zoo in May or June.
"Tufani was on birth control. It's an oral we give her every day,” said Katie Ahl, Woodland Park zookeeper. “We took her off birth control last year. We had a recommendation from the SSP to breed these two. We took her off birth control last year. She started cycling. Then we let Dave and Tufani take care of the rest.”
Tufani will be pregnant for 15 months before she goes into labor. Because giraffe's give birth standing up, her calf will literally nose dive 5 feet to the ground.
"The calf comes out head first, front feet and head first, then makes the long dive down to the ground," Ahl said.
Tufani's sister, Olivia, gave birth to her own calf a few years ago. It takes about an hour for the newborns to learn how to walk, a process that includes several more dives to the ground after their initial dive out of mom.
Giraffes in the wild are facing more risks to survival. Their status was recently changed to vulnerable, one step away from endangered.
"Partially poaching, partially land. There's a lot of threats to these animals," Ahl said.
But not for Tufani, whose biggest concern is eating for two – a concern her mate, Dave, seems to share.
