Giraffes

Veterinary School Application Advising Ad
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
K

kate_g

Senior Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
813
Reaction score
0
Members don't see this ad.
This is a totally non-serious thread, for anyone else who needs to think about something other than the admissions process for a while. 😀

My SO and I went to the zoo this past weekend - arrived maybe two hours before closing. We spent over half of that time watching the giraffes. First outside in their enclosure, then took a break to go see the gorillas and the aviary, then came back to the giraffe barn for the afternoon feeding. Spent 45 minutes just totally enthralled with giraffes eating acacia leaves. A high school aged girl asked the keeper some questions and revealed that she wanted to be a zookeeper and was particularly interested in giraffes. She said, "I just love them, I don't know why." I looked around, and everyone there was just staring with this bemused smile, watching the giraffes munch away.

So today on SDN I notice the abundance of giraffe avatars - mtrl1, cyrille, thomphea.

There are weirder animals out there, IMO, and certainly more charismatic ones... Why are we so charmed by giraffes?
 
kate_g said:
There are weirder animals out there, IMO, and certainly more charismatic ones... Why are we so charmed by giraffes?
Click to expand...

The giraffe in my pictures was the sweetest creature alive. He always wanted to play, be scratched, and sniff your head. And he had a really funny personality. Plus, they really are one of the strangest creatures. Let me change my avatar.

P.S. Angelo84 took these pictures when we worked together (which we just realized a few days ago, haha)
 
kate_g said:
So today on SDN I notice the abundance of giraffe avatars - mtrl1, cyrille, thomphea.

There are weirder animals out there, IMO, and certainly more charismatic ones... Why are we so charmed by giraffes?
Click to expand...

giraffes are cool, no doubt, but my personal fave is the OKAPI :
okapi.jpg

http://www.bristolzoo.org.uk/resources/images/Okapi%20and%20calf%20medium.jpg

when i did an internship at the zoo, i got to do a whole big formal presentation on our lone Okapi to the zoo patrons. they have a special place in my heart. 😍

OH! and to be relevant to this non-relevant topic, the okapi is the giraffes' only living relative 😀
 
Emio, did you do an internship at the Philadelphia Zoo? I was an animal care intern there last summer.
 
tiddlywinks said:
Emio, did you do an internship at the Philadelphia Zoo? I was an animal care intern there last summer.
Click to expand...

i did! i did the Education Ambassador internship... last spring semester? yeah, a year ago. i didn't even know there was an animal care one! thats so cool... what animals did you work with?
 
OH! and to be relevant to this non-relevant topic, the okapi is the giraffes' only living relative 😀
Click to expand...

Oh Emio - you are after my own heart. I got a behind the scenes tour of the Okapi stable locally. They are halter trained and I got to pet one of them. They are so soft. GOD I sound like I'm six! :laugh: One of my favorite zoo acivities is too stand outside the Okapi exhibit, and not only watch them, but watch people's responses to them and listen to them try to pronounce Okapi!😍
 
We just worked in the Children's zoo (and were sort of jealous that the education interns got to work with everything else 🙂 ). It was awesome though, hands on with everything, and they did take us on a couple of behind the scenes tours of african plains and such. We pet the cheetahs and Tony the rhino!
 
I have never heard of the Okapi! They're cute!!!

Of course, I had to google it, and learned all about cryptozoology in the process... apparently they are their mascot for cryptoszoologists everywhere.

Cryptozoology is defined as "the study of and search for animals and especially legendary animals (as Sasquatch) usually in order to evaluate the possibility of their existence "

Somehow Okapi's are studied by cryptozoologists! Strange, since they're real.
 
I can't really explain the love for giraffes. I just think they are amazing, I can just sit and watch them at the zoo for hours. I applied for an internship at my local zoo hopefully to work with them this summer. I had a friend who worked with them and said they smell like baby powder... I'm not sure about that. I just think they are great. 😍
 
as long as were are on the topic of cute animals...even though were really not... I just had to post this
big2.JPG
I love mini foals.
 
thomphea said:
I can't really explain the love for giraffes. I just think they are amazing, I can just sit and watch them at the zoo for hours. I applied for an internship at my local zoo hopefully to work with them this summer. I had a friend who worked with them and said they smell like baby powder... I'm not sure about that. I just think they are great. 😍
Click to expand...

They DO smell like baby powder!😍 😍 😍
 
cyrille104 said:
They DO smell like baby powder!😍 😍 😍
Click to expand...

Wow! Great one for trivia... I swear I have learned more on this forum than I ever did in Mammology 😛

It is funny how you take an animal for granted then you really look at them and think "oh how strange they look..."

Bill was one of my favorite giraffes, I used to watch him as a kid visiting the Denver Zoo- he had turned white (I still don't quite understand why, but he was white!)

Crazy how things work out, never thought I would be working there 😎 Definitely if there is a plus to being rejected by schools- that is it!
 
Cheska.. You work at the Denver zoo? That is where I applied for a summer internship. I'm sure it is an entirely different experience.
 
tiddlywinks said:
We just worked in the Children's zoo (and were sort of jealous that the education interns got to work with everything else 🙂 ). It was awesome though, hands on with everything, and they did take us on a couple of behind the scenes tours of african plains and such. We pet the cheetahs and Tony the rhino!
Click to expand...
ack! i didn't get to pet the rhino!! now i'm jealous! haha, we did lots of hands on stuff with the reptiles, and little educational bits here and there throughout the zoo obviously, but that's about it. good time, though!

4theanimals said:
Oh Emio - you are after my own heart. I got a behind the scenes tour of the Okapi stable locally. They are halter trained and I got to pet one of them. They are so soft. GOD I sound like I'm six! :laugh: One of my favorite zoo acivities is too stand outside the Okapi exhibit, and not only watch them, but watch people's responses to them and listen to them try to pronounce Okapi!😍
Click to expand...
😍 i never got to pet the Okapi either 🙁. i could just SEE how velvet-y soft they were though! heh. when i did my presentations, i always tried to get people to guess what kind of animal they were. i think i got 'part rhino' once? when an interviewer asked me what kind of animal i'd be, he almost got an okapi, but i changed my mind last second :laugh:

and to whomever stated about the cryptozoologists... it's cause nobody knew what the heck these things were until recently! they'd brign back some zebra-striped hide, and then a skull that looked like a baby giraffe's, and then red velvet. pffft, no one believed anybody until i think a whole hide was brought back to england? i think it's a pretty damn good mascot 😀

three cheers for giraffes and kin, too many smileys, and the best thread ever. 🙂
 
Emio said:
when i did my presentations, i always tried to get people to guess what kind of animal they were. i think i got 'part rhino' once? when an interviewer asked me what kind of animal i'd be, he almost got an okapi, but i changed my mind last second :laugh:
Click to expand...


I wonder which part was supposed to look like a rhino?
 
cyrille104 said:
The giraffe in my pictures was the sweetest creature alive... Let me change my avatar.
Click to expand...


Beautiful pic, Cyrille...you make me miss Africa soooo much!



Oh, and thank heavens for people who have heard of the okapi! You guys made my day.
 
Well...since I'm late to the prevet route and will never find the time for a zoo internship I'll just have to be happy with my nudes! No matter how many times I see them, I can't get over how ridiculous they look 😍
they definitely don't smell like baby powder!- but you grow to love their stench:laugh:
Nude%20Mouse.jpg
 
sambone said:
Well...since I'm late to the prevet route and will never find the time for a zoo internship I'll just have to be happy with my nudes! No matter how many times I see them, I can't get over how ridiculous they look 😍
they definitely don't smell like baby powder!- but you grow to love their stench:laugh:
Nude%20Mouse.jpg
Click to expand...

Wow... that is super cute!!! It shouldn't be, but there is just something about naked rodents that makes me go "awwww". 😍 But I just love rodents in general too, especially my guinea pig! Can you say Personality?!?!
 
thomphea said:
Cheska.. You work at the Denver zoo? That is where I applied for a summer internship. I'm sure it is an entirely different experience.
Click to expand...

Yup, I do. I got the summer primate internship last year, and never left. I'll PM you about my experience there... feel free to ask any questions about it!
 
Ok and Tapirs are pretty cute too! - they have this Snuffleufagus (sp??? lol don't think I've ever actually written that before) thing going on, that makes me wanna pet them until they cheer up 🙂 They're so stubby and portly, I love it! Like a pot bellied pig 😍

Giraffes are awesome to watch, and I'm totally jealous of Cyrille's pic holding one in his arms! Its also interesting to watch them eat, their mastication reminiscent of cows chewing cud, with a pause every few minutes as if a thought popped in their head, then disregarded as no importance, then back to chewing.

My addition to the Giraffe factoid list: Their self-defense mechanism is to kick. Imagine being kicked by a Giraffe...that would fall under the category of not good!
 

Attachments

  • tapir.jpg
    tapir.jpg
    3.3 KB · Views: 73
Capybaras have got to be one of the coolest rodents! I think they look like giant guinea pigs😍
 
InfiniVet said:
Ok and Tapirs are pretty cute too! - they have this Snuffleufagus (sp??? lol don't think I've ever actually written that before) thing going on, that makes me wanna pet them until they cheer up 🙂 They're so stubby and portly, I love it! Like a pot bellied pig 😍
QUOTE]


Ever since I got bit by a tapir, they have not been my favorite animal. And I had to explain to all of my non-prevet friends what a tapir was over and over. Heh.
Click to expand...
 
wivet2011 said:
Capybaras have got to be one of the coolest rodents! I think they look like giant guinea pigs😍
Click to expand...

They're from Brazil! Sometimes they show up in the middle of the city where I used to live (a 10million people city...not in the middle of the forest...) to swim in a big lake there! I don't know how they show up there...but they're funny! 😀
In Portuguese we call then "capivaras".
 
Wow, that would be pretty cool to see a "giant guinea pig" running through town! I remember at the Phx Zoo they had to put theirs on diazepam for introductions- a whole bunch of really chilled out capybaras! I've always liked them, I remember reading a book when I was a kid about somebody who had one as a pet- probably in Brazil... I loved that book!

I went to the Cleveland Zoo a few years ago and was enthralled by the Fossa! They are not nearly as evil as that stoopid movie Madagascar makes them out to be (ok, I do own the movie, but after a summer with lemurs and hearing the public sing "I like to move it, move it" every 5 minutes it began to wear on me just a little!! :meanie: ). My bf and I spent almost an hour watching the fossa having their exhibit cleaned, then they had feeding time, and it was just super cool- of course it was also very nice and warm inside, and yucky and rainy outside.
 
i have nothing really helpful to add, but here is jeff corwin getting tossed around by an elephant. imo, though, i think it serves him right... it just seems (from a wildlife student perspective) that corwin doesn't always give these animals their propers...

http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/c...estoftv/2007/03/23/cooper.elephant.attack.cnn

ps - not that i want him to get hurt- we need all the wildlife ambassadors we can get...
 
InfiniVet said:
My addition to the Giraffe factoid list: Their self-defense mechanism is to kick. Imagine being kicked by a Giraffe...that would fall under the category of not good!
Click to expand...
When I was at the SF Zoo pondering giraffe magnetism, somebody talking to the keeper said how sweet they seemed, etc., and he said "from here, yeah, but I wouldn't go in the pen with one." While I'm sure individuals vary, he made them out to be kind of unpredictable, and you just don't want to be in the wrong place when the mood hits. Apparently a vet there got kicked while trying to remove sutures a couple years ago. He's OK now, but it involved broken bones and such. Yeek.
 
somebody talking to the keeper said how sweet they seemed, etc., and he said "from here, yeah, but I wouldn't go in the pen with one."
Click to expand...
Was the keeper talking to someone from the general public? Sometimes keepers have to educate the public that zoo animals, no matter how cute, are wild and should be handled with respect and at a distance. When I volunteered at a zoo, my keeper reminded me not to call the animals by name in front of visitors, who might start thinking of the bobcat, sunbear, chimpanzee..... as they do of their own domestic pets.
 
egghead115 said:
Was the keeper talking to someone from the general public?
Click to expand...
He was, so he may have been exaggerating their unpredictability etc. But I doubt he was making up the story about the vet getting kicked. I didn't look up news articles to confirm it or anything...
When I volunteered at a zoo, my keeper reminded me not to call the animals by name in front of visitors
Click to expand...
Interestingly, the SF Zoo unabashedly names their animals - at least the large/charismatic ones, I dunno that every bug in the insect zoo has a name. They have public contests to name new babies, too. (In fact, the panda born recently at the Atlanta Zoo (?) was publicly named... I feel like that's a pretty common practice actually.)
 
I know that many zoos do try and tell stories to the public to remind them that the animals are in no way domesticated no matter how docile they may seem. I think a lot of people that have worked in zoos are so fond of giraffes because they are one of the animals that are easy/safe to touch and feed. This usually doesn't mean going into a pen with them, as they spook so easily they could easily kick/knock you over/trample on you, but many are very sweet. They get scared of absolutely everything though, one time the electric boxes were repainted leading out to their outdoor exhibit and the female wouldn't pass them for about a week :laugh: .

Typically in order to build interest and support for zoos locally they a zoo will publicize/advertise some of the more popular animal's names. The zoo I worked at had a huge naming contest a few years back for our new baby african elephant. That was probably my favorite animal experience, interacting with him. Granted he was clumsy and often stepped on your feet, but still fun nonetheless.
 
Since tapirs were previously mentioned in this thread...I just thought this would be a cute addition:
capt.lon80403301229.britain_baby_tapir_lon804.jpg
capt.lon80303301229.britain_baby_tapir_lon803.jpg
SO CUTE!🙂
 
a) they're tall (I can relate)
b) they have great tongues
c) they're canines are lobed (sorry, I'm predental, gotta mention the teeth)
d) they're poo looks like coco puffs-what's not to like?🙂
peace
 
My aunt sent me a pic from a visit to the san diego zoo. Apparently you can pay $5 and feed the giraffes a small amount of treats. It was such a great pic. Their long necks just reach over the gate. I just really want to smell a giraffe. Yes, I know how wierd that sounds.
 
thomphea said:
I just really want to smell a giraffe. Yes, I know how wierd that sounds.
Click to expand...

Well after all this talk about giraffes smelling like baby powder, I really want to smell one too! 😀
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top