Kenya’s Only Female White Giraffe And Her Calf Killed By Armed Poachers At Sanctuary

Mar 11, 2020

On March 10, conservationists confirmed the death of what might be the last female white giraffe in the world along with her calf in a poaching incident at a Kenyan wildlife sanctuary in Garissa County. The death of the two rare giraffes leaves only one male white giraffe alive in the entire world.

A press release from the Isaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy, which protects and manages the area, noted that the rare giraffe’s corpse was in “a skeletal state” when they found it. That means that the poachers didn’t kill the animals recently; rather, the poachers must have struck in the past few months.

The Kenya Wildlife Service were only called to the scene to investigate after the giraffes seemed to have disappeared according to CNN. Upon arriving, the rangers, who will now launch a more in-depth investigation, found that the remains appear to be around four months old.

To make matters worse, the female white giraffe and her calf were first discovered by a local villager only three years ago.

“They were so close and extremely calm and seemed not disturbed by our presence,” conservationists at the sanctuary wrote on their blog in 2017. “The mother kept pacing back and forth a few yards in front of us while signalling the baby giraffe to hide behind the bushes."

The female giraffe, who gave birth to a second calf shortly after their discovery, attracted worldwide media attention, receiving coverage from National Geographic, USA Today, Inside Edition, among other outlets.

The three extremely rare giraffes would travel around the park as a family, which led to a big boost in tourism to the area according to the sanctuary’s press release. After the illegal hunting incident, only one member of the giraffe’s family remains, a lone bull who will have to fend for himself.

These giraffes were particularly popular — both for researchers and tourists — thanks to their rare white color, which they got from a unique condition called leucism according to CNN. But unlike albinism, which affects animals’ eye color, leucism allowed the giraffes to continue to produce darker pigments in their soft tissue, including in their eyes. That also meant that rather than being completely white, the giraffes’ hides were pale and patchy in color.

Mohammed Ahmednoor, manager of the reserve in Garissa County, Kenya, who called the news “a wakeup call for continued support to conservation efforts,” said that this was a particularly big loss for the scientific community who was involved in genetic studies and research on the unique giraffes. The investment, Ahmednoor said, has “now gone to the drain.”

“This is a very sad day for the community of Ijara and Kenya as a whole,” he added in the release.

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