Kenya: Conservationists have fitted the world’s only known white giraffe with a tracking device, a last-ditch effort to save the species from extinction. The giraffe has a rare genetic trait, leucism, which results in partial loss of pigmentation in animals and causes white, pale, or patchy colouration of the skin. The bull is the last in a family of three after a female and her 7-month-old calf were slaughtered in March 2020. It was spotted in June, some 111 days after the other two were killed.
Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy in Ijara, Garissa County, where the giraffes lived, said the exercise to put the tracking device was done on November 8 at the request of the conservancy’s board to the Kenya Wildlife Service. The GPS tracker was placed on the ossicone (horn) of the giraffe. The GPS unit will give hourly updates of the location of the giraffe enabling rangers to monitor his movements on a daily basis, “and in doing so keep the unique animal safe from poachers.”
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