Hybrid Giraffe Herd

When was this photo taken?

The zoos' current herd are:

0.1 Rukiya (23/09/2001) Imported 2002
0.1 Kiraka (20/11/2009) Imported 2011
0.1 Kabili (31/12/2016) Zabulu x Kabili
1.0 Billy (26/09/2018) Imported 2020

They are all hybrid giraffes.

Auckland Zoo has only ever had one Rothschild's giraffe (Zabulu). He arrived in 1998 and died in 2017.

@Zoofan15 this photo was taken in august 2020 I just assumed they were Rothschilds giraffes because they have a similar texture & don't look much like other giraffe species like masai giraffes.

@Escher Nicholls Most of the giraffes in Australasia are hybrids. Kabili (daughter of Zabulu) is half Rothschild's.

@Zoofan15 I didn’t know that there were hybrid giraffes.

@ChIkEn NuGrEt Australasia has a whole region full of them! There’s a handful of Rothschild’s (around 2% of the population) and everything beyond that is hybrid.

@ChIkEn NuGrEt The vast majority of giraffes in the US are hybrids. Only Masai Giraffes and a few (not even all) of the Rothschild's at San Diego and Audubon are pure.

~Thylo