Rothschild's
Giraffe
Project
CONSERVATION & RESEARCH IN AFRICA
GIRAFFE TRANSLOCATION, KENYA 2011
The Rothschild's giraffe is also known as the Baringo giraffe, since they were once abundant in the area surrounding Lake Baringo in Kenya. However, their shrinking range and loss of habitat saw them disappear from the area over 40 years ago and they have not been seen there since the 1970s.
Formed in 2009, the Ruko Conservancy is a community-led conservancy on the shores of Lake Baringo. They are hoping the Conservancy will help wildlife conservation around Lake Baringo and encourage tourism in the area.
In January 2011, we were involved in a very exciting, pioneering and quite amazing plan: to bring the Rothschild’s giraffe back to its original home: Lake Baringo.
The translocation took a total of six weeks to complete, and all eight giraffe were safely moved from their original home in Soysambu Conservancy, to their new home in Ruko Conservancy. You can read the full story by downloading the article we wrote for Africa Geographic, see link below.
You can see photos of the event in the photo album below, and watch videos on the Video page.
There was one major problem however: the Ruko Conservancy is on a side of Lake Baringo where there are no roads, and so the only way to get the giraffe to their new home was by boat! This was a daunting prospect since no-one has ever tried to move giraffe by boat before, but we were up for the challenge and set about making this amazing story a reality.