Standing tall: giraffes prepare for zoo opening

When Paris’s Vincennes Zoo closed for refurbishment in November 2008, the entrances were boarded-up and the 130 resident species of animals were rehoused, all except the giraffes.

Keepers decided that the animals’ size coupled with bonds between the family of 16 meant it would be impossible to find them temporary homes, so all alone they have rattled around in the zoo ever since.

But now the giant animals’ isolation is set to come to an end as a steady trickle of birds and beasts – including zebras and ostriches – return to the park on the eastern fringes of the city ahead of its official re-opening slated for April 2014.

Zookeeper Matthieu Villemain said that the family, headed up by 15 year-old patriarch Benny, had been kept together because it was so large that rehousing them would have meant separating them.

He added: “We had such a large, precious group with lots of individuals that if we had moved them we’d have split up the group and it would have been hard to get a group like that back, it would have taken a long time. So the real strong point for the re-opening will be having this big herd of giraffes already in the park.”