Have you ever seen a floating giraffe? Few people had… but that didn’t stop the Ruko Community Conservancy from building one to rescue a journey of Giraffes from a sinking island!
Lake Baringo, Kenya (18 April 2021) – In 2020, Ruko Community Conservancy launched an ambitious (and amphibious) plan with their partners to return Rothschild’s giraffes to the iconic Eastern Rift Valley, their ancestral home where they were wiped out 70 years ago!
Once widespread across the Rift Valley in Eastern Africa, Rothschild’s (Nubian) giraffe populations have declined by well over 80%, so only 3000 are left in the wild today. In Kenya, only 800 Rothschild’s giraffes remain in small isolated populations. In 2011, after a 70-year absence, eight Rothschild’s giraffe were re-introduced onto a peninsula in Lake Baringo as a first step to repopulate their original rangelands in western Kenya. However, unpredicted increasing lake water levels have turned the peninsula into an island, making the relocation of the giraffe off the island urgent.
On a brilliant sunlit day in December 2020, Ruko successfully began the rescue of trapped giraffes from an island in Lake Baringo that is being flooded by rising water levels. The plan was to sail them to a special sanctuary on the mainland on a barge made by local community members.
“First, we rescued the two most imperilled giraffe from the island, Asiwa and Pasaka, gently floating them than a mile to safety in their new home at the Ruko Community Wildlife Conservancy. Then in January 2021, we moved the lone bull, Lbarnoti. The big male walked calmly onto the barge and never stopped eating acacia seed pods on the whole trip!”
To bring the giraffe to the mainland, SGN partnered with Northern Rangelands Trust and the people of Ruko Conservancy to complete a 4,500- acre fenced sanctuary in the 44,000 acres Ruko Community Wildlife Conservancy. This giraffe sanctuary will keep the re-introduced, somewhat naive giraffe safe from predators and poachers. Very importantly, during this challenging pandemic, this program benefits local people through the creation of crucial jobs building the sanctuary and fences, as well as for ongoing sanctuary operations and anti-poaching rangers. This is hugely important as people are benefitting directly from giraffe conservation, helping promote sustainable co-existence into the future.
Their next plan is to try to train the remaining six island giraffe – including new calf Noelle, born in December – to also enter the barge voluntarily in order for them to be moved soon. Rothschild’s (Nubian) giraffe numbers have plummeted, but there is hope, sparked by innovative conservation teamwork such as this.
“We feel a great sense of urgency to complete this rescue,” said our president, David O’Connor. “With giraffe undergoing a silent extinction, everyone we can protect matters.”
Ruko also will reintroduce a further 12-15 Rothschild’s giraffe from Soysambu Reserve and Ruma National Park in Kenya.
These giraffes will be the pioneers in re-populating the region. Once the group is healthy in the sanctuary, they will be released into the wider Ruko ecosystem, which is the perfect giraffe habitat. Then other giraffes will be translocated there to increase group size and improve the gene pool. Over time these giraffes should be able to travel through wildlife corridors to their distant cousins in Uganda!
“We need your help to complete this incredible and hopeful project that not only rescues stranded giraffes but is part of a long-term plan to reintroduce these giraffes to their ancestral lands. Local communities and the Kenyan government have come together around this incredible effort, a positive conservation story and an impressive effort for Africa’s last giants. 100% of your donation goes to on-the-ground conservation work in Africa.”
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