UNEXPECTED GOODNESS
“Every birth is incredibly special indeed,” said Hannah Owens, an okapi keeper at Chester Zoo. “Mum has been doing a fantastic job of feeding and nurturing her calf every day.”
Zookeepers threw a coming-out party for the baby calf of an okapi couple—a rare birth of “one of the least known and understood species on the planet”
Known as the forest giraffe, the endangered mammal, named Arabi, was born at Chester Zoo on May 12th to a 10-year-old mother and a 20-year-old male named Stomp.
Arabi’s namesake is a village located in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve inside the only country where okapis are found—the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Africa.
It’s estimated that fewer than 10,000 remain in the wild, living in the dense rainforests in the DRC where their zebra stripes act as camouflage.
~ “Biodiversity, it starts in the distant past and points towards the future.” ~ Frank Lanting