Workers at the Fort Wayne zoo in northeast Indiana needed a couple hours to get an escaped giraffe back into its enclosure.

The 7-month-old female giraffe got loose Monday from the African Journey exhibit at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo. Zoo spokeswoman Bonnie Kemp says the giraffe didn't get off the property.

Staffers were able to corral the giraffe in a fenced parking lot in a non-public area of the zoo. Zookeepers worked on calming the animal before returning it to the enclosure. It wasn't immediately clear how the youngest in the zoo's nine-giraffe herd escaped.

The zoo just opened to the public for the season on Saturday.