Team Bio

Our team has worked together for four years. In this time, we have done much-needed research on zoo giraffe foot anatomy which has raised awareness for the importance of routine hoof trims and new medical techniques to manage arthritis and other conditions. We bring giraffe expertise from both the zoo veterinarian and master farrier perspective. This will help us identify key differences between feet from zoo and wild giraffe. Long-term, this will improve giraffe care in zoos.

Liza Dadone

I am a vet at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, where I have worked with one of the largest giraffe herds in North America for the past six years. Because of our award winning giraffe training program, I have unprecedented hands-on access to our 16 giraffe. This has helped us develop techniques to better manage arthritis and other conditions in giraffe. I have presented on our giraffe medical care at multiple national and international conferences, and our Zoo now hosts an annual Giraffe Care Workshop to help advance giraffe medicine. My hope is that by keeping zoo giraffe healthy and happy with advances in veterinary care, our guests will have more opportunities to interact and fall in love with these beautiful creatures.

In the past few years, I have also become involved with giraffe conservation. Wild giraffe are having a "silent crisis" in that their populations have decreased by about 40% in 30 years and yet this receives relatively little media attention. A career highlight for me was helping with a Rothschild's giraffe conservation project earlier this year, called "Operation Twiga." I was part of a multinational team that captured 18 wild giraffe and moved them by boat across the Nile River, back into their historic home range. This was done because almost all of this subspecies (1,500 giraffe) live in a park where oil mining is about to begin and will likely impact that ecosystem. The project was featured in the PBS documentary Giraffes: Africa's Gentle Giants http://www.pbs.org/video/23658...(I'm the vet in the blue Zoo shirt).

By working with both zoo and wild giraffe, my hope is to help both groups and ultimately to make giraffe conservation more effective. Zoo vet expertise could be invaluable for diagnosing and managing wild giraffe health problems such as Giraffe Skin Disease. Likewise, understanding if there are differences in foot shape for wild vs zoo giraffe could help us find ways to manage zoo giraffe differently and ideally prevent arthritis.

Steve Foxworth

For the past 14 years, I have worked as a farrier in northern Colorado, working with horses ranging from backyard pets to high performance horses across disciplines. In 2007 I received my Lameness Specialist Certification from the Equine Lameness Prevention Organization (ELPO) and have had great success in turning around lame horses and helping them become sound. I have been the president of the ELPO since 2012, running clinics and certification programs for other hoof care professionals.

Shortly after receiving my Lameness Specialist Certification, I was asked to assess a lame zebra at the Denver Zoo, opening the door for me to work with a variety of captive exotic hoofstock. I have been Denver Zoo's farrier ever since.

In 2013, I was contacted by Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (CMZ) in Colorado Springs, CO to assess a moose with a cracked hoof. After one trimming, the crack in the hoof had improved significantly and I was asked to evaluate the Zoo's giraffe herd. This resulted in the establishment of a voluntary hoof work training program for CMZ's giraffe, and I have been trimming the giraffes' hooves once a month ever since. The work being done at CMZ has demonstrated the need for developing a hoof trimming protocol for giraffe so that information can be shared with other zoo professionals and institutions to better the husbandry care provided. Because the animals in zoos have such an important job as ambassadors for conservation, I feel it is our responsibility to continue to monitor, question, educate, and improve upon our practices when it comes to the animals' wellbeing in captivity. The opportunity to study the form and function of wild giraffe feet will provide valuable insight into how we maintain our captive herds.