Click here for:
GIRAFFE CENTER PICTURES

As part of our day sightseeing in Nairobi, we went to the Giraffe Center. Located just outside city limits in Langata, it’s run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife. Its purpose is to boost the population of the rare Rothschild’s giraffe and to educate the public about conservation of these awesome animals. There are six giraffes currently at the center.

In 1973, there were only 130 of these giraffes living on a 18,000-acre ranch in Western Kenya. This spurred on Jock Leslie Melville to initiate a program to save these animals from extinction. What he and his wife Betty did was capture a baby giraffe to start their own program of breeding in captivity. They did this at their home in Langata which is still home of the present center.

They named their first giraffe Daisy and by 1979, with the help of further acquisitions, they had successfully bred and reared a further seven giraffes. This may sound like an insignificant number, but thanks to this humble beginning, several breeding pairs of Rothschild's giraffes have now been relocated to Kenyan national parks where they had no previous presence. There are now over 400 of these majestic creatures littered throughout the country.

This center was such a fun place to visit! There is a giraffe-level, circular observation tower where the giraffes push their heads through, and Jeff and I got to hand-feed them pellets. What an experience! We were pretty timid at first, but we soon got the hang of it. You feed them by dropping pellets on their tongues when they stick them out. Their tongues felt like sandpaper and very slimy! We even got to pet them. Very cool!

There were guides available to show you how to feed the giraffes and to answer any questions. There is also a small museum which houses a display of information on giraffes.

There were various other animals around, including a few tame warthogs. The original warthog, named after Walter Cronkite, was killed by poachers. There is also a lovely tea house where Jeff, our driver, and I enjoyed some refreshments.


TOP OF PAGE

Copyright © 2002, Dawn M. Dalton.
All rights reserved.