The birth of a baby giraffe at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in Comal County is good news for the newborn's struggling species, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
A female Reticulated Giraffe, named Faith, is the 32nd giraffe to be born at the Ranch since it opened in 1984, and animal specialist Tiffany Soechting says her birth comes at a sensitive time for the species.
"The reticulated giraffe, that Faith is, has declined by 80% just in the past fifteen years, in their native homeland of east Africa," she said.
The Reticulated Giraffe, which is the most familiar type of giraffe, is the victim mainly of ceaseless wars in the Horn of Africa nations like Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, which is its natural habitat.
Reticulated Giraffes are also being killed for food by starving people whose food sources have been dislocated by the fighting, and they also fall victim to poachers who are setting traps for other animals, like rhinos, and the giraffes die in the traps by accident.
"In Africa there are approximatley 400,000 elephants but only 97,000 giraffes," Soechting said. "This disconnect has led to their otherwise silent extinction."
Faith is actually the third generation to be born at Natural Bridge. Moms will be interested to know that at birth, Faith weighed 120 pounds and was a little over five feet tall
.Faith is now greeting visitors at Natural Bridge.
Soechting says programs like the one is in place at Natural Bridge are saving the species from extinction.
"It is very fortunate that in captivity and under a well managed program, they do breed highly successfully," she said.
PHOTO;' TIFFANY SOECHTING