Giraffe expert: Breech birth was rare

From her home near Asheville, Laura Bingaman Lackey has for years kept the North American studbook on giraffes, tracking their lives and deaths for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

As the studbook keeper, Lackey can crunch the numbers and find that of the 732 calves born over the last decade, 9 percent, or 67 giraffes, were stillbirths or born prematurely.

She added one more calf to that group this week.

Autumn, the Greenville Zoo's 8-year-old Masai giraffe, delivered a stillborn male after zoo staffers arrived at about 3 a.m. Wednesday and found her in full labor with the calf's hind hooves exposed.

Despite efforts to revive him, the calf died a half hour later.

Zoo veterinarian Heather Miller said she never felt the baby's heart beat. Results from the necropsy, while inconclusive on the cause of death, showed that he never held air in his lungs, she said.

Lackey's studbook depends a lot on what zoos relay to her, but based on that huge database, she said quite often the cause of death is the birth process itself.

Giraffes don't usually have congenital defects — she can think of one or two animals born with a hole in their hearts and another with his front legs folded under.

"Sometimes, something just goes wrong and the babies are born dead," she said.

What's more unusual, Lackey said, is that Autumn had a breech birth where the calf came out hind feet first.

She's only aware of five other breech births since the mid-1970s among giraffe calves, so "this is incredibly rare," Lackey said.

In one of them, Lackey said the mother died, too. And zoos will rarely resort to cesarean sections since there's never been a successful one performed where both mother and baby survived, Lackey said.

Miller, however, said "a significant amount" of zoo deliveries aren't watched so the number of breech births is likely much higher.

She and the other keepers have been keeping a close eye on Autumn during the afterbirth and reported that she is doing well.

Autumn could be seen alone out in the paddock via Earthcam's live video stream Thursday afternoon. She will remain separated from mate Walter for three to four weeks so her body can recover.

There's no reason to suspect she won't be able to have more babies after the breech birth, Lackey said.

One giraffe who had a breech birth went on to have eight more calves with no problems, she said.

Since Autumn and Walter came to Greenville as part of a breeding loan, the next calf would belong to Walter's owner, the San Diego Zoo. Firstborn Kiko, now almost 2 years old, will eventually go to Franklin Park Zoo.

Miller said keepers are working to get Autumn used to having her belly touched for future ultrasounds.

The zoo has a portable unit that has been used on lions and may work on giraffes, she said.

But Lackey said an ultrasound may not have prevented what happened to Autumn's calf, who was still alive and moving the day before delivery.

"She had already had one successful calf before," Lackey said. "I don't think they could have seen this coming."

Friends of the Greenville Zoo said on its Facebook page that the group plans to pick a name for the calf out of those submitted and plant a memorial tree.