Tough love urged for ailing giant

He turns his nose up at generic medications and supplements, he won't eat all the expensive trees his keepers fly in from Florida, and he'll let only certain people touch him, though not for long.

"This is the most spoiled giraffe I've ever seen," said giraffe specialist Vaughan Langman, while visiting one-ton Beau yesterday at the Franklin Park Zoo. "I've never seen a giraffe with so much stuff in my life."

Worried about the health of the 6-year-old Masai giraffe since he was diagnosed with a wasting syndrome in September, Franklin Park Zoo officials summoned Langman, known to some as the "giraffe whisperer." Langman, a professor at Louisiana State University, spent the weekend at the zoo, sharing with veterinarians and keepers his taming and handling techniques honed in Africa.

"I got probably 25 years of catching, moving, holding, and treating," he said. "What you've got there is not the average giraffe."

Beau, one of 50 Masai giraffes in accredited North American zoos, has dropped 600 pounds since contracting peracute mortality syndrome. A veterinarian predicted Beau would be dead by November, but he has held on, thanks in part to the coddling at the zoo.

"They've worked so hard with that giraffe to keep him alive it's amazing," Langman said.

Zookeepers have had to treat Beau from a distance because of his skittishness. When one veterinarian tried to take a blood sample, Beau, 17 feet tall, promptly swung his massive head and gave her a concussion.

Langman advised moving Beau's favorite food, forcing him to eat it inside an enclosure, where he can be weighed and medicated. "He's going to kick and snarl, and so what? If he does the dying-giraffe routine," Langman said, tilting his head to the side in imitation, "just bite his tail and he'll wake right up."

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