How former foes worked together to help save these rare giraffes
Asiwa, one of eight Rothschild’s giraffes stranded on a rapidly shrinking island inside Kenya’s Lake Baringo, is guided onto a barge bound for the mainland. Her rescuers outfitted her with a blindfold and earplugs to reduce the stress of her journey.
Rangers from the community-run Ruko Conservancy watch Asiwa step off the barge and into her new mainland home. “It was a dream that came true,” says Rebby Sebei, a Pokot community member who manages the conservancy.
David O’Connor, president of the nonprofit Save Giraffes Now, comforts Asiwa as she is transported by barge to her new home. Only around 2,000 of her kind remain in Africa, so every individual is precious, O’Connor says.
To get trapped giraffes off the flooding island, rescuers had to manoeuvre them onto a barge nicknamed the “Giraft.” Here, the barge carrying the female named Asiwa is towed across Lake Baringo.
After an hours-long rescue, Asiwa gallops onto the mainland. If everything goes according to plan, the rest of the rescued giraffes will join a dozen more to be brought in from other areas, to form a breeding population within the Ruko Conservancy.