Australian giraffe just won’t move: she doesn’t like rain

A young giraffe just won’t move until it stops raining. The Daily Telegraph (November 7, 2012) writes that Australia’s Taronga Western Plains Zoo rangers have delayed a giraffe’s relocation because giraffes don’t like rain.

Three-year-old Kitoto, a young female giraffe, was due to be moved to a different location – which meant getting into a large box and being placed onto a low loader truck. She’s been practicing the move for a awhile to get used to entering the transport box. She is becoming sexually mature and the zoo keepers want to move her to Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. She only had to travel 15 metres from her front yard to the transport crate. But it rained. The Taronga Western Plains Zoo is in the rural town of Dubbo – and it hasn’t rained for weeks. But Kitoto wasn’t going to move one little bit.

A zoo spokesperson said, “Giraffes just don’t like the rain. They will not move, and prefer to just stand still, preferably under a tree, or at Dubbo, stay inside the Giraffe House. No one really knows why. They just dislike doing anything in rain.”

After an hour and a half of negotiation, zookeepers stopped coaxing her with food. Besides, the peak hour traffic was starting and they wanted to transport her early in the morning to avoid the traffic during the 412 kilometre (256 mile) journey (about 5 hours of driving).

Although she will leave 11 other giraffes that she’s grown up with in Dubbo, Kitoto will join three giraffes at Taronga’s Sydney Zoo as she enters breeding age. The aim now is to leave her where she is and try again in the morning. They’ll put the transport crate in front of her night house so she’ll walk straight into it in the morning – if it doesn’t rain! The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting rain – in fact, thunderstorms (“a classic late spring storm outbreak”) – in Dubbo for November 8 and November 9. Zookeepers may have to wait until the weekend.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1708883/Giraffe-refuses-to-get-her-hair-wet

http://www.news.com.au/national/taronga-zoo-postpones-move-of-moody-giraffe-because-giraffes-dont-like-rain/story-fndo4bst-1226512075050

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