The CD office was spoilt for choice when it came to animals on Friday 20 June.
First, the RSPCA brought some puppies into the office for National Take Your Dog to Work Day and to highlight the unprecedented number of puppies and pregnant dogs at the shelter.
Then we headed to the National Zoo and Aquarium to meet some of the resident giraffes ahead of World Giraffe Day on Saturday 21 June 2025.
National Zoo and Aquarium hoofstock team lead Phoebe Ritchie said the day highlighted the plight of giraffes in the wild.
“In the last 300 years, the natural habitat of the wild giraffe has decreased by about 90 per cent because of habitat loss due to the human population increase,” she said.
“And then in the last 35 years, 30 per cent of the giraffe population has decreased in the wild.”
There are five giraffes that visitors to the zoo can see.
“Zookeepers at the Canberra tourist attraction shared some cool facts about the giraffes: they sleep standing up, have bedrooms at the zoo and love routine.
Zookeeper Olivia Ware said their routine was very strict.
“They don’t like when things change in their environment,” Ms Ware said.
“And of course, in the wild, they would be seeing a lot of change, but here, if we pressure wash the raceway, they don’t like that it’s a different colour.
“So you have to be very mindful of that in our care of them.”
She said the zookeepers also liked to give the giraffes a bit of variety to build their resilience.
“They’re very funny, especially when it rains, they just turn to jelly and they will not move from their shelter,” she said.
Ms Ware also shared some cool facts about the ossicones on the top of their heads.
“They look like horns but they’re unique to giraffes,” she said.
“When they’re born, their ossicones are actually quite flat on their heads so they don’t hurt mum on the way out.
“When they’re about a week old they pop up and it’s what males will use to fight with each other.”
She said the attractiveness of a male giraffe in the wild was dependent on the number of bumps on their ossicones.
“They’re hard calcifications , they’re like permanent bruises and it shows how many fights you’ve been in and how many you’ve won,” Ms Ware said.
“For males to fight, they do have a behaviour called necking, where they essentially throw their heads into their opponent’s side with those ossicones.”
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