Zoo Nooz: Frank Buck Zoo hosting annual World Giraffe Day 5k

GAINESVILLE, Texas (KXII) - For the second year in a row the Frank Buck Zoo is taking part in the annual World Giraffe Day 5K to raise awareness for the Giraffe Conservation Foundation.

“Unfortunately giraffes have suffered a pretty heavy population decline in the last 30-40 years, they decreased about 40%,” Seabaugh said.

Normally when you hear the words “animal” and “extinction” in the same sentence you think of Elephants and Rhinos, but Senior Animal Care Staff of the Africa Section at the Frank Buck Zoo Sarah Seabaugh tells News 12 Giraffes extinction are even worse.

“For every four elephants there’s only one giraffe out in the wild so pretty significant decline, so with this 5K we are hoping to make their silent extinction a little less silent,” Seabaugh said.

This is the fourth year the Giraffe Conservation Foundation has done a 5K to raise awareness for their decline.

For this 5K run there are four different age group categories and the top place finisher for both the male and female will receive a prize, but if you just want to take a nice walk in the zoo, everybody who participates will go home with a medal.

“We think it’s really great for the community, we’ve reached out to the Gainesville running club even people as far as Denton there running club we’ve reached out to so it’s a great way to bring people in Gainesville and the surrounding area to the zoo cause it not only raises awareness for Giraffes Conservation but other animals in general,” Seabaugh said.

The walk will be taking place in the Zoo while the run is located in a field outside. Along with the medals, participants will receive snacks and free admission to the zoo upon completion.

“We are definitely looking forward to doing it again in the future, we got a lot of positive feedback from our event being the first time last year we weren’t exactly sure how it was gonna go, we had a lot of positive feedback and a lot of interest in us doing it again this year,” Seabaugh said.

And a fun fact for your Friday:

“They actually have several similarities to people, they have the same number of neck bones that we do just a lot larger and they also have the same number of teeth as we do,” Seabaugh said.

The Giraffe 5K will take place Saturday June 24th at 7:30 AM

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