Impala rejects her baby — but another mom adopts the newborn at Florida zoo. ‘Magical’

An impala mom rejected her baby at a Florida zoo — but then a new mom took the baby in as one of her own.

Zookeepers were excited to welcome a baby impala to mom Imara this fall, but their “joy quickly turned to concern,” the Brevard Zoo said in a Dec. 11 news release.

Imara wasn’t allowing her baby to nurse, the zoo said.

Zookeepers had the idea to bring the baby impala to Kiswa, an impala mom whose own baby had recently died.

“We had no idea how Kiswa would respond, but based on behavior we had observed between Kiswa and Imara’s calf prior to Imara rejecting her, we had high hopes,” the zoo’s Africa platform area supervisor Alyssa Simon said.

Impalas are a type of antelope native to more than 10 countries in Africa, according to the African Wildlife Foundation. The animals generally live in herds.

It’s not uncommon for mothers to reject their offspring, Simon said, but the animal care team always hopes the children can be raised by their animal parents.

At first, Kiswa also wouldn’t nurse the baby impala, so zookeepers stepped in to bottle feed her. She began to gain weight but soon stopped wanting to bottle feed.

That’s when zookeepers realized “something magical had happened,” the zoo said.

Behind the scenes, zookeepers observed Kiswa nursing her adoptive baby. The baby continued to gain weight, and after a month, the pair joined the rest of their herd at the zoo.

“They were able to regain the mother-daughter bond they both had been missing,” the zoo said.

Brevard Zoo is in Melbourne, about 60 miles southeast of Orlando.

This story was originally published December 11, 2023 at 1:01 PM with the headline "Impala rejects her baby — but another mom adopts the newborn at Florida zoo. ‘Magical’."