Louisville Zoo Names Baby Giraffe
The ballots are counted, and the winner is: Silvester. That’s the name chosen for the Louisville Zoo’s four-month-old Masai giraffe calf, in honor of longtime giraffe keeper Silvia Zirkelbach. Silvester and Zirkelbach even have the same birthday: June 27. When Silvester was born, he was six feet six inches tall and weighed one-hundred ninety-four pounds. Zoo visitors selected the name from among three choices by dropping donations into a kiosk at the zoo. The zoo plans to use the proceeds toward care and feeding of the animals. The other choices were Cassius and Rudy, narrowed down by the zoo from more than one-thousand five-hundred suggestions. Silvester is the twenty-second giraffe to be born in the zoo’s 43-year history. He is on exhibit daily, weather permitting.
