A new face at Safari West

The Safari West family welcomed a new arrival on Saturday when Mara and Tuscon had their first baby, weighing in at 130 pounds.

The parents are reticulated giraffes and welcomed the six-foot-tall youngster named Jiggs into the herd.

“He’s doing fine. He’s outside playing right now. They do an awful lot of running and playing. They’re very curious, gentle beings,” said Aphrodite Caserta, Safari West spokeswoman.

It's the first baby for Mara and Tuscon, but not for the Sonoma County-based park, which greeted the birth of another giraffe last August, that time to a mother named Zarafa.

Safari West is home for over 400 exotic mammals and birds on 400 acres in Sonoma County. The wildlife preserve was established by Peter Lang in 1989, with a self-described mission of preserving wildlife through breeding, education, research and public interaction.

Another giraffe is pregnant and will deliver the park's tenth calf soon, Caserta said.