My Life With Giraffes

Jenni Maxwell, dedicated keeper at Cotswold Wildlife Park, shares the rewards of being "best friends" with her happy giraffes

- SUSIE KEARLEY

Cotswold Wildlife Park is home to five male giraffes who are part of a European breeding programme. "Usually wildlife parks have one male for a few females," says Jenni. "It means there's a surplus of males needing homes, so we take the males.

"We have two hybrid giraffes. Experts used to think there were lots of different subspecies of giraffes, but they eventually realised that many were hybrids. They now recognise just five subspecies of giraffe. The hybrids have no conservation value, so no zoo is breeding them.

"Our three others are Rothschild's giraffes. The studbook coordinator decides when they should breed and with which females. If one of our males is requested by the studbook coordinator for breeding, he would be sent to another collection to live with the females. Century is the dominant one of the group. He's been here for years.

"One of the herd has been castrated, so he doesn't have the dominance instinct, but the others will challenge each other.

"The three youngest giraffes, all Rothschild's, arrived in 2020 and adapted to fit in. They fight between themselves, swinging their necks and smacking each other, trying to be dominant, but they don't challenge the others. They're keeping themselves to themselves until they're older, when they'll start to test the hierarchy.

"The giraffes mount each other another type of dominance behaviour-but they've never been with females, so they don't miss having ladies around. Century is good at keeping them all in place. And when keepers have food, we're his best friends, too!"