It was love at first sight when I saw my first okapi
One of Marwell Wildlife Park's okapis. Picture by David Connop Price.
Their stripey hind-quarters and velvety coats mean many people think the okapi is a cross between a horse and a zebra, but in fact the okapi is the giraffe’s distant cousin.
BECAUSE of their shyness, okapis are not necessarily a zoo favourite, but I became enamoured with them from the moment I set eyes on one – at London Zoo.
I was accompanying my sister, Kim, on one of her regular trips to London Zoo with the boys she was looking after at the time. We’d gone to the Into Africa exhibit where towering giraffes, beautiful zebras and strange-looking tapirs are housed.
Then we came across an enclosure which I’d not been to before.
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