“Wild Life” TV drama adaptation cancelled as giraffes die after filming
Wild Life is a manga about a veterinarian working to save animals and was planned to have a TV drama on NHK starting in March. However, NHK has now announced that they will be cancelling the TV drama as a giraffe mother and child pair have died soon after they finished filming the child.
The 5 month old child giraffe “Himawari” was separated from the parent giraffes for a period of 3 days for filming, and the parent giraffes started showing symptoms of stress. The child was returned to the parents but the mother giraffe “Ririka” died in a few days. The child soon died after another 6 days.
The story for the episode was supposed to have been about the giraffe Taiyo who was fitted with an artificial leg 6 years ago at the very same zoo in Akita.
