South Lakes Wild Animal Park South lakes 2014 news

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Belle was such a beautiful baby, am really upset about this and think the best decision was made for her welfare but what sickens me about the whole situation is that is could have been avoided. Lessons have NOT been learned as the baby male calf is still in with the rest of the herd and on public display! I have been a regular visitor for the past 20 years and have really had the blinkers on, I am horrified by what I have read on here regarding Kadi :mad:
 
I am the same, she was beautiful and as you say this absolutely could have been avoided! Since it happened everyone has said how fragile the young ones are and yet the male calf is still in with them all and bear in mind that the one who was rough with Belle is the mother of the male.
I had hoped for things to be done slightly differently but i can only hope that this calf manages to grow up.
 
I witnessed Belle trying her best to walk on Monday and was literally being shoved quite violently out of the way by the male calf's mother (Katumi???) Belle looked in pain and was struggling to even stand. I'm not surprised by this news but only 5 days ago it was stated that she would be given time to heal. By that I would have assumed that she would be penned separately in order to give her a chance clearly not happened, am so angry!
 
Can someone please copy and paste the quote (assuming there is one?) into the thread... Think silly gilly has worked out a way to hide certain posts from people he doesn't like ;) (eg: zoochat mods) Thanks
 
"So many people have been asking about our first ever birth of a West African Giraffe, Belle. As many of you will know at about a week old she suffered a trauma to the hip joint caused by a very simple and unpredictable accident when another giraffe simply brushed by her. we have had her examined by a number of Vets and the latest by one of the top Zoo Vets in the world. Because of the nature of the injury and the difficulties in sedating and investigating the injury we have decided to be patient and give her a chance to see if the injury will heal or not. We are assured by our Vets she is not in pain and they will asses her progress in a few weeks time. At this time she gets around really well, even runs, she can get up and down from rest and apart from the way her leg sits sometimes she is doing really well. I hope that alleviates some of the concerns about her immediate condition. You can see Belle walking around with her mother next to the mother giving birth in the photo. Both calves were together out in the sun today ... beautiful ! " That was posted on the Safari Zoo FB page on 29 March 2014.
 
I was there on the day it had happened, she was really struggling to walk :(
I also seen that she was to be given time to heal but apparently it was decided to put her down, possibly in the hope that the new baby will be a distraction.
The day i was there Elouise (Belles Mum) seemed more interested in her general day to day activity than the baby and Katoumi was rough with her a couple of times. She's a flighty one and didn't seem to have taken well to a baby.
I haven't visited yet to see how she is with her own calf!
 
Just to make it clear: At this moment in time there does not appear to be any official confirmation from the park themselves about the calf's fate... until some form of announcement is made anything posted here is just speculation
 
The last news about Belle that I can find.

I am sorry to say that Belle is not doing so well , we are doing our best . April 1 at 8:01pm

As Nisha has asked will someone please post the source of the information about her being put to sleep.
 
The male calf was hiding behind the wooden 'L' shaped partition when I went, no interaction that I seen with mother and calf at all, she seemed more concerned shoving Belle out of the way. She did not look too well to be honest, a lot of blood coming from her nose that I heard someone comment on to the keepers Maybe, just maybe, human interaction with Belle (as in Gill & his kids) should never have happened and she may have shown more interest in her. Such a sad situation that should never have happened. Blinkers are well and truly off! I've always found Gill to be an extremely unlikable person but always believed he knew what he was doing. After reading for hours on here my opinion has drastically changed.
 
Hmmm that's not good :(
Katoumi had blood from her nose? Is this a common thing as Tibor (one of the hybrid males) was bleeding from his nose on my last visit, i'd assumed he had banged it or something.
 
daffodil said:
Belle was such a beautiful baby, am really upset about this and think the best decision was made for her welfare but what sickens me about the whole situation is that is could have been avoided. Lessons have NOT been learned as the baby male calf is still in with the rest of the herd and on public display! I have been a regular visitor for the past 20 years and have really had the blinkers on, I am horrified by what I have read on here regarding Kadi :mad:
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Young Giraffes can and are kept in with the main herds at many collections,but then that depends on IF you believe the version of the story of how the injury was attend by the calf!But then most of those collections have indoors that are alot bigger than what SLWAP have,and they also have houses that were designed to house a breeding group and not one designed for housing a bachelor herd!

As for what happened with Kadi thats what happens when you cannot admit you made a mistake,just to see how a great man he is you only have to remember his comments hours after the death of the keeper claiming it was suicide,and the very sudden back tracking he had to do when even his own followers turned on him,there are plenty of over skeletons hidden within the place and one day they will all come out!!!
 
SmallestGiraffe said:
Hmmm that's not good :(
Katoumi had blood from her nose? Is this a common thing as Tibor (one of the hybrid males) was bleeding from his nose on my last visit, i'd assumed he had banged it or something.
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Cannot say that this is something I have noticed as normal with any other Giraffes that I have seen,but it could just be that they have caught there nose on the fence and damaged it,as the nose is quite a sensitive part of the Giraffes body!
 
I she was euthanised by injection what will happen to her body does anyone know? Surely she cannot be used as food for other animals? Please forgive my ignorance, I'm just concerned is all.
 
daffodil said:
I she was euthanised by injection what will happen to her body does anyone know? Surely she cannot be used as food for other animals? Please forgive my ignorance, I'm just concerned is all.
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Brace yourself this may seem a little cruel,but the normal procedure in this country is for an animal to be cremated,but with animal the size of a Giraffe it may require a bit of butchery first.
 
I was there on Tuesday and a member of SLWP said that they were hoping to let Belles leg heal on its own and she was in no pain or discomfort.I saw her walking for a short time and she looked to be moving quite well. The only problem she seemed to have was laying down where she sort of just fell onto her side.
The other baby giraffe was in a small partitioned off area with her mother. He was laid down most of the time in a corner where his mother didn't pay him a lot of attention in the 20 minutes we waited for the talk and feeding time (we gave up waiting when it was 15 mins over due!) I dread to think how long all those giraffes are going to be couped up in that shed though,the paddock looks in a pretty bad state after they looked to have spread manure on it as fertiliser. Fingers crossed there are no more incidents.
I will put some photos on soon of poor little Belle and the male youngster.
 
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Big Rob said:
I was there yesterday(Wednesday) and a member of SLWP said that they were hoping to let it Belles leg heal on its own and she was in no pain or discomfort.I saw her walking for a short time and she looked to be moving quite well. The only problem she seemed to have was laying down where she sort of just fell onto her side.
The other baby giraffe was in a small partitioned off area with her mother. He was laid down most of the time in a corner where his mother didn't pay him a lot of attention in the 20 minutes we waited for the talk and feeding time (we gave up waiting when it was 15 mins over due!) I dread to think how long all those giraffes are going to be couped up in that shed though,the paddock looks in a pretty bad state after they looked to have spread manure on it as fertiliser. Fingers crossed there are no more incidents.
I will put some photos on soon of poor little Belle and the male youngster.
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I suspect you may well have taken some of the very last pictures to be taken of Belle by anybody on this site,because from what I am hearing despite no official conformation by SLWAP or Mr Gill that she has indeed been put down!!
 
And I'm pretty sure it can be guaranteed that she was indeed in a lot of pain. Giraffes just don't heal from injuries like that and she should have been put down a long time ago. Not that Gill had done any right by that poor calf from the moment she was born.

~Thylo:cool:
 
zoogiraffe said:
they also have houses that were designed to house a breeding group and not one designed for housing a bachelor herd!
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Do I deduce the house is one barn with only limited (or even no) facilities for dividing into seperate areas if needed (as e.g. at London or Whipsnade) to house a mother and calf seperately?
 
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