Mesi, the Little Rock Zoo's lone giraffe, was transported to his new home in Texas on Tuesday, zoo officials announced Wednesday.
Mesi was taken to the Abilene Zoo and unloaded in an off-exhibit barn, where he’ll be kept until the the zoo finishes construction on a new $3.8 million exhibit, a Little Rock Zoo news release states.
The giraffe will be housed with two female giraffes to breed and hopefully produce offspring, the release states.
Mesi came to the Little Rock Zoo from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Park in 2006, when he was barely a year old. He weighs about 2,500 pounds and stands more than 18 feet tall.
The now 8-year-old giraffe was thought to have broken through a dividing gate after zoo hours and sparred with the zoo’s only other giraffe, Jigsaw, until he was unable to get up, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported.
Jigsaw died Dec. 29.
Little Rock Zoo Director Mike Blakely said Mesi was too big for the zoo, and zoo officials plan to make improvements to the facility so giraffes can eventually be housed there again.
Read Thursday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more on this story.