The baby giraffe debate.

[John Marchwick]

ok, I’m here to start a conversation and NOT pointing fingers at zoos but I think that zoos have GOT to not keep all of these giraffes on birth watch or announce these giraffe births so early as it seems giraffes calves keep dying early at 3 weeks or younger. I strongly agree that zoos should WAIT and announce births for giraffes after the calf lives to be a month of age as these baby giraffe deaths keep happening and I really hate hearing about it so I think zoos should keep it to themselves when it comes to baby giraffe births and wait to announce they had a giraffe calf born until it lives to be at 1 to 2 months old or older. How should zoos handle these situations. Again I’m NOT trying to point fingers but to start a conversation.

 

[Chlidonias]

I really hate hearing about it so I think zoos should keep it to themselves when it comes to baby giraffe births and wait to announce they had a giraffe calf born until it lives to be at 1 to 2 months old or older. How should zoos handle these situations.

I'm not sure I am understanding this. You're asking how zoos should handle the situation of you not liking hearing that giraffe calves have died?

 

[John Marchwick]

I'm not sure I am understanding this. You're asking how zoos should handle the situation of you not liking hearing that giraffe calves have died?

No. I’m saying should zoos stay quiet about giraffe pregnancies until the calf is about 1 to 2 months old?

 

[MidwestFan]

I think the danger in this approach is that it appears as a cover-up when a calf does not survive and creates a PR defensive situation when the crazy "animal rights" people find out. They will use it to forward their agenda of trying to close all zoos/aquariums/farms/etc.

 

[Echobeast]

Like I said in the Columbus Zoo thread, that is the way zoos used to do it. They used to keep babies hidden from public view until they were confident it would survive. This is fine but it’s also seen as sneaky by the public. We also probably lost just as many giraffe calves then as we are now. The only difference is that zoos are more open to explaining why the calves die and the methods they used to try and save them. We just didn’t hear about any of the calves that didn’t survive. So now that zoos are more open, it appears that more calves are dying when it’s just that we are hearing about them more.

The reason zoos are doing this is to build trust with the public. If zoos are the ones to report on happenings behind the scenes, they can control the narrative and it is much harder for AR groups to spin it their way. If zoos were to keep calves or other babies secret for months, the public will start to ask questions and AR groups can build off of that and seed mistrust in zoos. If zoos are to survive the recent attacks on them, the first step is to build trust with the public. This is one way that they do that.