Giraffes and Elephants, Nairobi

We met up with the six new travellers joining our trip in the morning, and headed out in taxis for the Giraffe Centre which is a sanctuary for the preservation of the Rothschild giraffe which is critically endangered in Kenya. In the centre there are a number of rescued giraffes which we were able to feed up close as they leaned down to take small food pellets from our hands. Some fed the giraffe pellets from their mouths, which seemed to me, a strange thing to do, but each to their own. It was a bit of a tourist photo opportunity, but the giraffe centre is involved in giraffe conservation helping to raise the number of Rothschild giraffes in Kenya from around 100 up to 700. We also had a presentation about three of the nine total species of giraffe in Aftica - The Masai, Rothschild and Reticulated giraffes who all have distinctive and different patterning and only produce barren offspring, like mules, if they hybridise. We met a very gentle and friendly female giraffe on the ground which bent down to take the pellet from my hand. It was lovely to get so close to these large animals. The giraffes have different personalities and one dominant male at the centre was more aggressive, head swiping tourists occasionally on a higher balcony. But on the whole, giraffes feel like very gentle souls up close and delicately take the food from your hand with their long (50cm in adults) sandpaper like tongues which are tough and quick healing for negotiating the acacia thorns when eating their favourite leaves in the wild. There was also a younger giraffe which had to reach up to feed from our hands on the balcony. After feeding the giraffes we were given a short talk about them and the conservation work of the giraffe centre.
We then drove on to the David Sheldrake Wildlife Trust, which is a sanctuary for orphaned elephants. We were ushered into a large roped, muddy arena surrounded by about a hundred tourists. About seven young orphaned elephants were feeding on branches with leaves, and moving around the arena. At times an elephant would come close enough for us to stroke its hide which was surprisingly soft and hairy to the touch. A member of the trust gave a talk about the elephants' history of being orphaned by poachers and the care and rehabilitation they receive at the centre. Over 200 elephants have now been rehabilitated and returned to the wild. At times the elephants became playful or boisterous and pushed towards the crowds, closely followed by their keepers trying to usher them back into the arena. The first elephants were then taken out of the arena and some larger youthful elephants were brought into the arena. These older elephants were fed milk from supersized bottles which one elephant held with its own trunk to drink. The elephants gave a rumbling purr of enjoyment as they drank the milk and one elephant that was wanting more milk made a bit of a frustrated charge towards one of the keepers which was rebuffed by the other keepers. It was special to see the young elephants at such close quarters for an hour and to get a feel for their intelligence, sensitivity, different personalities, and deep inward soulfulness.Read more