As the rest of North Texas was resting up to celebrate the nation’s birthday, the staff at the Dallas Zoo had already begun its July Fourth celebration.
About 2 a.m. Sunday, a female giraffe was born to third-time mother Chrystal. Already, the animal stands about 5-foot-5 and weighs 104 pounds.
Matt James, the zoo’s senior director of animal care, said the newborn was expected to make her public debut at 9:15 a.m. Thursday, entering her habitat in the Giants of the Savanna area with her mother and other females in the herd.
The calf, which will grow to be about 17 feet tall, is unnamed for now. The zoo’s staff usually waits to get to know an animal’s personality before picking a name.
“Everybody’s pushing an Independence Day, Fourth of July-type name,” James said, adding that lots of people had emailed to suggest the name Liberty.
“But we do like to try to keep the names of animals born here in the same language as a language within their native range,” he said. “We might take the Fourth of July theme and find a Swahili name that fits that.”
With the addition of the calf, the zoo has nine giraffes in its herd: four females and five males, including a young male calf.
Like most births at the Dallas Zoo, this one took detailed planning in the months before the calf’s arrival.
Chrystal was paired with a male named Tebogo as part of a species survival plan created by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
James, who serves as vice coordinator of the giraffe species survival plan, said the zoo had initially expected the calf to be born Monday.
Giraffes have a gestation period of 15 months, and caretakers track a female’s hormones to predict the day she will give birth.
“These things don’t really happen where the mom looks completely normal, normal, normal, and then a calf is born,” James said. “The females get uncomfortable, they start to pace. Our team’s really in tune with that, so that they can usually tell us, ‘Hey, it looks like Chrystal’s uncomfortable.’ And then we’ll start scheduling people to pay close attention to her.”
Once the team noticed Chrystal was getting ready to give birth, caretakers started monitoring her with a remote camera system, James said. Caretakers watched the birth remotely and then came in during the morning to check on the calf.
“Chrystal did all the work,” James said. “We did nothing.”
On Monday, caretakers performed a neonatal exam, also referred to as a well-baby check.
“By every measurement we took, she’s a very happy, healthy calf,” James said.
After mother and calf had 48 hours to bond, they were introduced behind the scenes to some of the other females in the herd. The animals are still getting to know one another but will enter the habitat together Thursday morning.
Although it might seem soon to introduce the newborn publicly, James said the decision has a lot to do with the dynamics of the herd.
“It’s really indicative of Chrystal being a very good, experienced mother, and the calf is very strong,” he said. “This herd that we have right now is really good at bringing the calves in and accepting them right away. For me as a curator, I like to give them the option to succeed early.”
The new calf is one of many that have been born at the Dallas Zoo in the last several years.
In 2020, two calves were born at the zoo, one on May 2 and another on July 29. One of the calves, a female named Tana, has since been relocated to Fredericksburg, in the Texas Hill Country.
In 2017, a mother named Katie welcomed a male calf named Tsavo.
Other calves at the zoo have had tragic endings.
On April 25, 2018, Chrystal gave birth to her second calf, a male named Witten. When he was 1 year old, Witten died while under anesthesia during an exam to check for health issues ahead of his transfer to a zoo in Canada.
Four years earlier, in July 2015, 3-month-old calf Kipenzi died after crashing into a wall in her habitat, breaking three vertebrae in her neck.
James said the zoo updated its habitat and behind-the-scenes facility after those deaths to guard against problems with future calves.
For example, he said, the area where giraffes are examined and put under anesthesia has been updated so caretakers and veterinarians are level with an animal’s head while it is being examined.
“With a smaller giraffe, like the young giraffe Witten that died, he was lower than we were, so it’s harder to be able to monitor all of his vitals,” James said. “And so we’ve adapted that [area] so that it can fit a large giraffe and a small giraffe.”
The fencing around the habitat also has been changed so it’s more obvious to the giraffes, James said.
“With the two deaths that we had … I think we definitely took learning experiences from that,” he said. “But we still want the animals to be able to explore the [other] animals. I’m very confident in this mom and this calf, and I think they’ll be doing very well.”
