Daring Giraffe Rescue

How do you get the world’s tallest animal off an island? That’s the problem wildlife experts in the African nation of Kenya faced last fall. Months of heavy rain had left nine giraffes stranded on an island in Lake Baringo. Swimming to safety wasn’t an option. The lake is too wide for the giraffes to swim across, and hungry crocodiles lurk in its waters.

The animals—a type of Northern giraffe known as Rothschild’s giraffes—had been living on a peninsula that stretched into Lake Baringo. Conservationists had brought the animals there in 2011 to protect them from poachers who illegally hunt giraffes for their meat and spotted coats.

For years, the animals could safely roam from the peninsula to the mainland to find food. But starting in late 2019, heavy rains caused the lake to swell, turning the peninsula into an island and cutting the giraffes off from the main­land—and their food supply.

So wildlife experts came up with a plan to safely get the towering creatures off the island. The team would float the giraffes across the lake on a raft—a type of rescue that had never been tried before.

David O’Connor, the president of Save Giraffes Now, a nonprofit that helped lead the mission, says rescuing those nine giraffes was important to protecting the species. 

Only about 3,000 Rothschild’s giraffes are left in the wild. Like other types of giraffes, their population has dropped in recent decades because of poaching and habitat loss. Humans now use many of the areas where giraffes once lived for farming and logging. War in some countries has also driven giraffes from their habitats. 

“We felt a great sense of urgency to complete this rescue,” says O’Connor. “With giraffes undergoing a silent extinction, every one we can protect matters.”