Jabali the giraffe joins Hamilton’s bachelor boys

Friday, 12 July 2024

A jaunt south down State Highway One has seen Auckland giraffe Jabali join the bachelor tower at Hamilton Zoo.

Nearly two-year-old Jabali has left his Auckland parents Kiraka and Billy, whose genetics are now well represented in the Australasia region.

This means he’ll get to spend time being a bachelor and play a “vital advocacy role” for his species.

Auckland Zoo made sure the transportation of one of the world’s tallest land animals went smoothly, with a new trailer that caters for such special cargo.

Training with Jabali to get him feeling familiar with the trailer occured over the past few months, keeper Ben Cosgrove said.

“Jabali is naturally a very inquisitive, calm, and trusting giraffe, and over the past few months he’s been an absolute joy for us to work with in preparation for his two-and-half-hour road trip to Hamilton.”

The trailer was put inside the giraffe house where Jabali could see it overnight. And he was fed inside the trailer every morning during his training sessions. This all contributed to him being comfortable in his ride down to Hamilton on Wednesday.

Cosgrove said a lot of work had gone into the new trailer to ensure its usability, safety, and comfort.

“It’s a bespoke design with an extendible canopy roof so it can cater for giraffe up to five metres in height, and can also be used for zebra, waterbuck, nyala and other ungulate species, and take a total weight of 1850kg.”

At 576kg, Jabali still has lots more growing to do, so comes in as a relative lightweight for the trailer’s capacity, and at 3.93m tall, he’s also well within the maximum height of its adjustable roof.

“To get down to Hamilton without a hitch, we double checked the route and the weather to ensure it was safe to travel and worked with a specialist haulage company for added safety and advice. It was great to be able to travel freely on the motorway,” Cosgrove said.

Jabali joins fellow giraffes Masamba and Dume at Hamilton Zoo.