The Toronto Zoo announced on social media the tragic loss of Kiko, a 13-year-old Masai giraffe, who unfortunately died after being caught in an opening door. <\/p>\n
The Toronto Zoo says one of its giraffes has died following an accident in its habitat.<\/p>\n
\u201c2026 has begun in the most heartbreaking way with the sudden and tragic loss of Kiko, a beloved 13-year-old male Masai giraffe,\u201d the zoo wrote in a post on social media.<\/p>\n
The organization said the accident happened in the afternoon on Jan. 1. They said Kiko had been given access to an \u201cadditional area of his behind-the-scenes habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue to his curious nature, he began exploring the space and tragically became caught in an opening door,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
The zoo explained that Masai giraffes have delicate heads and a six-foot neck \u201ccapable of moving forward, backward, up, down, and side to side\u201d which allows for their head position to shift quickly. <\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the team\u2019s immediate response, Kiko panicked and sustained injuries that, due to the unique anatomy of his species, proved fatal,\u201d the post said.<\/p>\n
The zoo said Kiko has been sent to the University of Guelph for a full postmortem, and a thorough investigation has been initiated by their Health and Safety Services team. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this appears to be a very tragic and unfortunate incident, as an accredited zoo, we will share the findings once the full investigation has concluded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Toronto Zoo said it will share any findings with the animal community as well, and that they are \u201ccommitted\u201d to learning from his death.<\/p>\n
Kiko came to the Toronto Zoo from South Carolina\u2019s Greenville Zoo and was part of a breeding program. He was paired with female giraffe Mstari, who the zoo says is currently in the later stages of a pregnancy, due early this year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Zoo announced on social media the tragic loss of Kiko, a 13-year-old Masai giraffe, who unfortunately…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[712,49,48,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-384769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}