Official confirms death of 4th giraffe at Peshawar Zoo

PESHAWAR: Four of the total six giraffes at the Peshawar Zoo died during 2020 when they were ready for mating while the cause of death is yet to be determined.

Project Director of the Peshawar Zoo, Ishtiaq Wazir, said now we have only two giraffes and four died in 2020. The first one died in April, second in May, third in June and the fourth on Monday.

He said the samples from the giraffe body had been sent to the Veterinary Research Institute in Peshawar and Veterinary Laboratory in Islamabad to determine the cause of death of the tallest animal.

The official said the results are expected to be received in a week and he would be able to know whether the infection was viral or bacterial. ”The earlier three died of shooting diarrhea while this one now had a somewhat different cause of death,” he said.

“We had provided antibiotics to the giraffe but it did not recover,” added the official.

He said it would create problems for other animals if the giraffe had died of a viral infection as the treatment of the viral infection was a bit complicated.

The official said that veterinary doctors at the zoo did the postmortem of the giraffe which showed that its intestine had been infected.

“When the intestine gets infected, it changes its colour”, he explained and said the intestine of the dead animal had become reddish from inside.

The official said the giraffes which had died earlier had shooting diarrhea which might have been bacterial.

Although this giraffe did not die of diarrhea but its digestive mechanism also had some problems, he added.

The official said giraffes are fragile animals as compared to others. The symptom of their disease appears at the time when preventive intervention could not succeed in most of the cases.

He said that zoo officials had established heating shelters for the animals and had taken care of their wellbeing. The official said the animals had adapted to the environment during the last four years.