![]() Although she was eating appropriate amounts of a nutritionally balanced diet, her weight fluctuated from week to week. Over the past nine months, keepers worked closely with Zoo nutritionists to offer her a variety of hay, herbivore pellets and browse (tree branches with leaves) as her food preferences changed and monitored her consumption closely. When she began weaning him in December, keepers noticed Zafirah was experiencing periodic episodes of stiffness in each of her legs and became very selective with the food she would eat in her diet. In fall 2018, Zafirah gave birth to a male calf named Gustav. A full pathology report will provide more information in the coming weeks, but animal care staff had been monitoring her closely over the past year for stiffness in her gait and liver and renal disease. ![]() In human care, the median life expectancy of female dama gazelles can be as long as 19 years in the wild, the median life expectancy of this species is unknown. Cheetah Conservation Station keepers at Smithsonian’s National Zoo are mourning the loss of Zafirah, a female dama gazelle who was humanely euthanized Sept.
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