It’s a boy! Toronto Zoo welcomes birth of Masai Giraffe

TORONTO, ON, February 27, 2022: Toronto Zoo has announced the newest addition to its Zoo family: a healthy Masai giraffe calf born at 9:00 a.m. Thursday, February 24! Both mom and calf are doing well. The calf stood for the first time within an hour and a half after being born (a typical timeline for a baby giraffe) and has already been observed nursing on the remote cameras that keepers have been using to monitor Mstari. We do not know the gender yet but will find out soon during the calf’s first check-up with our veterinary team.

On Friday, the Toronto Zoo took to Twitter to announce that the new addition is a boy. “Our veterinary team performed a thorough check-up on Mstari’s new baby, and have confirmed he’s a boy… and a big boy at that. At 84kg and 183cm in height, our giraffes’ newest family member is 21kg heavier than Amani when she was born!”

This is the second offspring for both mother Mstari, born here at Your Toronto Zoo in 2013, and father Kiko, a nine-year-old male. The pairing of Kiko and Mstari was at the recommendation of the AZA Masai Giraffe Species Survival Plan (SSP), a cooperative breeding program among accredited zoos. Mstari’s first calf, Amani, now 22 months old, is curious about this newest addition. Although she was separated from her mom during the birthing process, she has nose-to-nose access to Mstari and can hear and smell her new brother. Once Mstari and the new calf have forged a strong bond, the new big sister will be reintroduced.

“We have watched Mstari become an amazing mother to her first calf, Amani, over the last two years and we are thrilled to welcome a second calf to our growing Masai giraffe family,” said Dolf DeJong, CEO, Toronto Zoo. “This birth is an important contribution to a genetically healthy Masai giraffe population, which is under increasing pressure in the wild due to habitat loss and illegal hunting.

Toronto Zoo announced Mstari’s pregnancy on Mother’s Day in 2021 and it seems fitting somehow that the baby was born the week of Family Day. Back in May, Mstari was about six months into her nearly 16-month-long pregnancy, having conceived at the beginning of November 2020. Before breeding introductions took place last fall, keepers began collecting fecal samples to track Mstari’s progesterone (pregnancy hormone) levels. Breeding was observed between Kiko and Mstari in October and early November 2020. A lack of breeding activity at the end of November was the first sign of a suspected pregnancy, and confirmation was received on February 24, 2021 when the Toronto Zoo’s Reproductive Sciences branch detected elevated fecal progesterone levels. 

To celebrate the birth of Mstari’s first calf in May of 2020, the Toronto Zoo Wildlife Conservancy launched a campaign to raise money to support the growing giraffe family. The Room to Grow Campaign paid for modifications to the giraffe house to support our growing giraffe family. The campaign was re-launched a year later in May of 2021 when we announced Mstari was pregnant again, and the campaign remains active. The campaign continues to support the giraffe house modifications including:

• Reconfiguring the house to add an additional 400 square feet of indoor giraffe space;
• Adding a new giraffe door to improve connectivity and flexibility (completed in time for the new arrival!);
• Moving the giraffe training chute to allow for better access to the giraffes by Wildlife Care staff and the veterinary team (the next big phase of the project)

Funds raised from the re-launch will support the last phase of this three-phase plan to better meet the needs of our giraffes and the Wildlife Care team. In December 2018, the conservation status of Masai giraffes was elevated to Endangered by the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN). Fewer than 35,000 Masai giraffes survive in the wild, having experienced more than a 50% decline in the past 30 years. Illegal hunting and habitat loss are their primary threats. The Toronto Zoo is part of the AZA Masai Giraffe Species Survival Plan (SSP) and continues to support field conservation efforts for the species through the Wild Nature Institute’s Masai Giraffe Project.

SOURCE Toronto Zoo

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