THE WORLD’S ONLY known white giraffe has been fitted with a GPS tracking device to help protect it from poachers in Kenya.
The white giraffe now stands alone after a female and her calf were killed by poachers in March in a major blow for the rare animals found nowhere else in the world.
The bodies of the two giraffes were found “in a skeletal state after being killed by armed poachers” in Garissa in eastern Kenya, the Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy said earlier this year.
Their deaths left just one remaining white giraffe alive: a lone male, borne by the same slaughtered female.
Now the GPS tracking device, attached to one of the giraffe’s horns, will ping every hour to alert wildlife rangers to its location.
The conservancy has thanked the Kenya Wildlife Service along with the Northern Rangelands Trust and Save Giraffes Now for the help.
The female white giraffe stirred huge interest in 2017 when she was first spotted on the conservancy and again when she birthed two calves, the latest in August last year.
Their alabaster colour is caused not by albinism but a condition known as leucism, which means they continue to produce dark pigment in their soft tissue, giving them dark eyes.
It makes the one surviving giraffe stand out dangerously for poachers in the arid savannah near the Somalia border.
Contains reporting from © AFP 2020
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