L.A. Zoo's nursery is hopping (and crawling, and flapping) with baby animals

The L.A. Zoo has seen a spate of births recently, from the peninsular pronghorns and Speke's gazelles to the red river hogs (the watermelon-resembling creatures above, which are "like big puppies," according to zoo veterinarian Curtis Eng).  Our colleague Carla Hall has the details on the newborns:

Across the zoo, babies of different species are toddling, waddling, and jumping in pens and yards and stalls. A giraffe was born in April and another is expected any day. There are two Chacoan peccaries, a type of pig from South America, and a Japanese serow, a rare goat-antelope. A Mexican lance-headed rattlesnake, less than a month old, won't go on display until the zoo's new reptile house opens in 2011. But visitors can see a month-old gerenuk already standing straight up on outstretched slender legs as he browsed for leafy vegetation in a yard in the zoo's nursery.

Most hoof stock deliver in the spring, zoo staffers said. The nursery is full of babies being hand-reared because they are recovering from illnesses or their mothers can't do the job.

Also new at the zoo, Hall reports, are two greater flamingo chicks, with a third (probably) on the way.  (Flamingo eggs often fail to hatch, for a variety of reasons.)  For more on the zoo's newest additions, check out Hall's story and its accompanying photo gallery.

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Young red river hogs, born at the zoo in May, are hand-fed.  Credit: Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Americas Best Zoos author]

What's great is that many of these adorable babies at the Los Angeles Zoo are very rare and endangered animals! The new pronghorns, gazelles, peccaries, and Japanese serows are all very exciting news for the zoo world!

I hope LA residents will get out and see these adorable babies -- and continue to support your wonderful Zoo!

Allen Nyhuis, Coauthor: America's Best Zoos