{"id":466353,"date":"2026-03-09T18:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T18:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/466353\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T18:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T18:19:07","slug":"baby-okapi-neo-makes-public-debut-at-yorkshire-wildlife-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/466353\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby okapi Neo makes public debut at Yorkshire Wildlife Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was amazing to see Neo take his first steps into his new enclosure,&#8221; Birkett said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He was nervous at first but has settled in quickly and is enjoying his new environment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Often known as the &#8220;forest giraffe&#8221;, okapi are mammals native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, known for their distinctive striped markings on their legs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They can grow to almost 5ft tall (1.52m) at the shoulder with an average body length of 8ft (2.4m), weigh up to 771lb (350kg) and can live up to 30 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The species is currently classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, and is under threat from poachers, logging, illegal mining and other unrest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mother Ruby had been sent to Chester Zoo in 2023 to breed with their male Stomp, as part of the breeding programme for okapi in zoos across Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;It was amazing to see Neo take his first steps into his new enclosure,&#8221; Birkett said. &#8220;He was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-466353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}