The giraffe with its calf at Patna zoo on Thursday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Jan. 27: Four years after receiving giraffes from the San Diego zoo in USA, the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park here earned the distinction of becoming the third zoo of the country to witness the birth of a giraffe calf on Wednesday. Shristi, the doe, gave birth to a female calf at 6.44pm.

The arrival of the new guest gave some anxious moments to the zoo officials. The calf did not go for mother feeding for over 18 hours after its birth.

“The first mother feeding of the calf took place around 2pm today. We bottle-fed the calf once before that,” Patna zoo doctor Ajit Kumar told The Telegraph.

The delay in mother feeding became a cause of concern. Senior forest department officials, including principal chief conservator of forests Basheer Ahmed Khan and chief wildlife warden Mithilesh Kumar, visited the zoo today to enquire about the health of the calf.

Giving reasons for the delay in mother feeding, Dr Kumar said Vikas, the father of the calf, was behaving aggressively and attacked the calf several times, leading to its minor injury. “We had not separated the male giraffe after the birth of the calf as officials of other zoos had told us that there was no problem in keeping the father in the company of the mother and the calf,” he added.

Later, the male giraffe was separated from the mother and the calf. It worked as a wonder. After getting separated from the male partner, the mother started paying attention to the calf.

“The calf is in good health and walked for a while. It will be under intensive supervision for the next one week,” said the zoo doctor.

Prior to the arrival of the new guest, there were three giraffes (two female and a male) in the Patna zoo. The zoo officials came to know about the pregnancy of Shristi only a month ago.

“We were unaware of its pregnancy for such a long time because the partners did not mate in daytime. We came to know about Shristi’s pregnancy on the basis of its behaviour,” said Dr Kumar.

The gestation period of a giraffe is 400 to 460 days.

Dr Kumar said a close watch was being kept on another female giraffe, Shanti, as it might be pregnant as well.

According to the Central Zoo Authority records, the two other zoos that have witnessed birth of giraffe calves before Patna are the ones in Calcutta and Mysore.