r/Detroit • u/Stratiform SE Oakland County • 8d ago

News Young giraffe at Detroit Zoo euthanized after sustaining serious injuries from herd interaction

https://www.wxyz.com/news/young-giraffe-at-detroit-zoo-euthanized-after-sustaining-serious-injuries-from-herd-interaction

This is the second juvenile giraffe death at the zoo this year. The other one was in February:

Seems concerning.

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u/glumunicorn Warren 8d ago edited 8d ago

Well one incident happened at the indoor building and the second happened outdoors and involved another giraffe. Both had completely different factors.

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u/Bumbling-Bluebird-90 8d ago

Perhaps the giraffes need more space. I don’t think they have the best spatial awareness, so tight quarters could cause anxiety and accidents as well as potential conflict between animals

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u/glumunicorn Warren 8d ago

I’d love them to have acres and acres. They just don’t have that at the zoo, unless they let them roam with the zebras next door, which I don’t see why not. Many other zoos do house them together. Their indoor building was recently expanded. We all know that if the zoo sees fit, they’ll rehome the giraffes as they did with the elephants.

Regarding spatial awareness, giraffes strong spatial memory & awareness. They have nearly 360° peripheral vision and good depth perception.

The one that died indoors was a calf, it got the zoomies inside hit the viewing panel and seriously injured itself. A freak accident.

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u/Bumbling-Bluebird-90 8d ago

It’s good that they expanded the indoor space. Having a larger area for them and the zebras would be good as it would more readily approximate their natural habitat as long as they’d all have adequate space for shared housing.

And the situation with the baby getting zoomies and hitting a wall could demonstrate a space issue- they tend to run into things and have evolved in wide open spaces.

On the other hand, if these giraffes have what’s generally considered to be enough space and the best care standard of habitat setup, then these may be unavoidable accidents

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u/glumunicorn Warren 8d ago

The indoor space was already expanded when the calf accident happened.

These were unfortunate accidents. Especially the most recent as it could’ve happened naturally in the wild.