Here and There Blog

The last two of giraffes, I promise! Above: we feed the giraffes breakfast before sitting down to ours. Below, out on the Maasai, a family enjoys a sunny afternoon.

The Giraffe Center in Nairobi exists to provide a safe haven for the Rothschild Giraffe and to educate and promote wildlife conservation for the youth of Kenya. From: http://www.giraffecenter.org/ The African Fund for Endangered Wildlife Kenya (A.F.E.W Kenya Ltd) also known as the Giraffe Centre is a non profit making organisation, which was founded by the late Betty and Jock Lesilie Melville in 1979. The late Betty, Jock's American born wife, had earlier discovered the sad plight of the Rothschild giraffe and there were only 120 left on an 18,000 acre ranch in Western Kenya that was scheduled for sub-division and settlement. The first effort to save this sub-species was to bring two young giraffes to their property in Langata and later Betty founded AFEW USA.

Giraffe life at the sanctuary involves lots of eating. The breakfast window is open in the morning so you can hand feed the giraffes. At other times, tasty shrubbery does the trick Warthogs and giraffes co-exist peacefully for the most part Even eating side by side at times Nothing satisfies like some green ivy!

Lunch at Giraffe Manor. Cheers! There's never enough lunch for a giraffe! Hey! Sausage wants some snacks too!

After 48 hours of eating dust, we were ready to relax at Giraffe Manor in Nairobi. This sanctuary was set-up to protect the Rothschild Giraffes. Giles showed us where the pellets are kept and Lynn was more than willing to eat from our hands. Jean is so happy to be near the giraffes at last!