It took some coaxing to get the new giraffes to venture out yesterday into the Pittsburgh replica of an African savanna. Waiting to see the 9-foot-tall "babies" were reporters, photographers and a handful of zoo visitors who were at the right place at the right time for the unannounced debut of the newest stars at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

At first there was awkward silence when the 1-year-old animals failed to come out into the sun-dappled grassy pasture.

"This is new for them, and they are skittish. You never know with animals," said Dr. Barbara Baker, zoo president and CEO. "Oh, there's Willie coaxing them out."

That was the zoo's elephant manager, Willie Theison, who some call an "elephant whisperer" because of his uncanny ability to get the big animals to do his bidding. Mr. Theison waved a long leafy tree branch -- a mainstay in giraffe diets. He spoke or whispered words that the media could not hear, and the giraffe named Mel Lewis made a slow, majestic entrance into the savanna.

"Mel was hand-raised because his mother lacked the maternal instincts to raise him," Dr. Baker said. "He's less skittish than Buddy, who was raised by his mother."

Mel surveyed his audience and stretched his long neck up to eat leaves from a tree. Buddy soon joined him. Zoo workers heaved a sigh of relief. Cameras whirred and clicked.

Mel and Buddy are Masai giraffes, born at the Los Angeles Zoo. One is 12 months old and the other 18 months. They are half-brothers with the same father and different mothers. They arrived in Pittsburgh in June and were off-exhibit until yesterday while they got used to their new home.

At birth they were 6 feet tall and weighed 100 to 150 pounds. They now weigh 400 to 500 pounds. Giraffes are full-grown adults at 5 to 6 years, when they are 18 feet tall and weigh close to 3,000 pounds.

An orange snow fence separates the giraffes from the elephants.

"In the wild, giraffes and elephants live together. In zoos the elephants would chase the giraffes all day -- for fun," Dr. Baker said. "We will be moving the fence to gradually give the giraffes a bigger habitat. We might put the giraffes with the zebras. They would get along."

While zoo officials are excited about the arrival of the young giraffes, they are saddened by the deaths of two reticulated giraffes that were popular, longtime residents. Nifty died in November, two months shy of his 24th birthday. Tinkerbell died in January, one month before her 23rd birthday. Necropsies showed they basically died of old age, Dr. Baker said. Giraffes live 20 to 25 years in captivity, she said, and Nifty was the 12th-oldest male giraffe in the country.

Nifty fathered eight giraffes that are now in other zoos throughout the country. Tinkerbell was the mother of four of those and another female named Terry gave birth to four.

Mel Lewis and Buddy Raha (named after family members of Los Angeles residents who won the naming contest) will meet the public today from 1 to 4 p.m. After that they will be out in their habitat daily during regular zoo hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Labor Day through December, with entrance gates closing at 4 p.m.