Kipenzi, the giraffe calf whose live birth on Animal Planet made her a star, died last night.
The calf ran into the edge of her habitat, breaking three vertebrae in her neck. Officials with the Dallas Zoo say she died immediately.
“Running is a typical behavior for giraffes of all ages, especially young ones like Kipenzi,” Harrison Edell, the zoo’s senior director of living collections, said in a press release. “We’ve been very cautious with where we’ve allowed Kipenzi to roam, as we were with her siblings Kopano and Jamie when they were small. It’s heartbreaking that this happened where it did despite our precautions.”
Kipenzi made her public debut at the zoo in May.