origin of giraffes, 1968 » Woburn Safari Park

origin of giraffes, 1968
24-11-2008

does anyone know what giraffes were originally imported by Woburn in 1968. There were 1.3 animals; in one of my books it says they came from Uganda. So were they all Rothschild's giraffes or were they a mix of Rothschild's and reticulated (as the US studbook implies)?

Note that this question is only about the original animals from which Woburn built up their herd, not any later ones that may have been introduced there. Does anyone know the answer for certain?

Thanks

02-12-2008

nobody knows?

02-12-2008

The only help I can give you is that the current herd are definately pure Rothschild. Working backwards either the original ones were pure Rothschild, or a crossbred group was developed and then later replaced by purebreds. It doesn't answer your question though.

03-12-2008

thanks. I guess they were probably pure Rothschild's. The US studbook lists them as ret/roth (a Canadian zoo imported their's from Woburn, and a NZ zoo imported their's from that Canadian zoo, hence me wondering whether the NZ ones are pure or not)
giraffes going to Australia

03-12-2008

The 1.3 giraffes imported in 1968 by Woburn were:

1.0 Nijinsky (b. 1965, d. 25 Jul 1990)
0.1 Zoska (b. 1968, d. 20 Jul 1983)
0.1 Lefty (b. 1965, d. 21 Feb 1984)
0.1 Anyie (b. 1965, d. 15 Sept 1989)

There is no indication of where they were captured in my data. However, the more I look at the studbook, I find that Woburn currently has 5 "rothschildi" and 3 "ret/roth". However, the parents of the 5 "rothschildi" are the 3 "ret/roth" according to the studbook????? And further research found that some of "ret/roth" descended from the Woburn import of 1968.

03-12-2008

its all very confusing