IT was a case of tall tales, but true, as Taronga Western Plains Zoo’s special delivery made its way through Bathurst yesterday morning en route to a new home at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
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Kitoto, a two-year-old female giraffe, made a brief stopover in Bathurst as she and her entourage travelled from the Dubbo zoo.
Giraffe keeper Pascale Benoit accompanied the long-legged youngster and said the journey to Bathurst was “smooth sailing”.
“Kitoto hasn’t moved all the way,” she said. “I think she’s mesmerised.”
The calf was meant to make the journey on Wednesday, but was unsettled by the rain and refused to get into her specially-designed transport crate.
But it was all systems go yesterday, the unusual sight proving popular as well-wishers and curious onlookers waved and cheered Kitoto as she passed along the Great Western Highway through town.
The travelling crate had an opening at the back which allowed Kitoto to poke her head out and have a stickybeak along the way.
The crate was loaded onto a special low-loader truck, enabling the load to pass easily under low bridges and trees. Surprisingly, the truck was able to travel at the designated speed limits, at times hitting 100 kilometres an hour.
The giraffe was conditioned for eight weeks for the day-long journey to Sydney. Ms Benoit said Kitoto was gradually
introduced to her new mode of transport, handlers getting the curious critter used to being enclosed by feeding her inside the crate.
With Kitoto already reaching three metres tall, the transfer had to be
completed sooner rather than later because the fast-growing baby would become too lanky to transport via road – at her expected height of more than five metres she would not fit under bridges or in tunnels.
Kitoto, which is African for “small girl”, will join some relatives in the harbour city, bunking down with two other females and a male. Born and bred as part of the Dubbo zoo’s regional breeding program, the placid calf was transported to Sydney to help maintain the herd structure at Taronga.
After a quick pit-stop in Bathurst to ensure she was travelling well, Kitoto
continued her adventure with a police escort, winding her way through Lithgow and along the Great Western Highway.