The San Antonio Zoo is set to officially break ground on its new giraffe exhibit on Monday, June 22 at 10 a.m. Construction should last about five months with the exhibit expected to open to the public in late November.
It has been five years since the zoo has housed a giraffe. Daisy, the last giraffe to call the SA zoo home, died at the age of 33 in 2010 of old age.
The new giraffes will be coming from the Gladys Porter Zoo, in Brownsville. Daisy’s replacements will be three male giraffes, the youngest being four years old and the oldest one approximately ten years old.
The yet-to-be-named giraffe exhibit will be part of the Zoo’s Africa Live Phase 3. The process of planning and preparing for a more and open and naturalistic habitat has been in the works for over a year. The exhibit will feature several species of African hoofstock and birds along with a giraffe feeding station where one can stand eye-to-eye with the giraffes.
