Giraffe trivia, match the following:

Maasai Giraffe, Reticulated Giraffe, Rothschild Giraffe

The most endangered subspecies, Can interbreed with other giraffe subspecies, The largest subspecies

(answers at the end of the blog)

The sadness of leaving our new friends and The Mara was assuaged upon our arrival at the Giraffe Manor (to understand, see photo). The Manor was modeled after a Scottish hunting lodge and constructed in 1932. Currently it sits on 12 acres of private land within 140 acres of indigenous forest about 20 kilometers outside of Nairobi city center. The Manor is home to a resident herd of Rothschild Giraffe and a slew of other characters including warthogs, bushbuck, dik dik, and many species of birds. The Giraffe Manor together with its associated Giraffe Centre operates a breeding program to reintroduce breeding pairs of the endangered Rothschild Giraffe back into the wild to secure the future of the subspecies. The manor and grounds are breathtaking.

“Classic elegance with a dash of English renaissance”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

The story of how Giraffe Manor came to be is rather interesting. It was purchased in 1974 by Betty Leslie-Melville and her husband Jock. Shortly after the purchase, the Leslie-Melvilles learned that the only remaining Rothschild giraffes in Kenya were in danger due to a compulsory purchase by the Kenyan government of an 18,000 acre privately owned ranch at Soy, near Eldoret, which was their sole habitat. Inevitably the purchase would result in the land being sub-divided into smallholdings, and the giraffes being slaughtered. Since the Manor was already home to three wild bull giraffes (nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry), the Leslie-Melvilles agreed to rehome one of the giraffes, an 8-foot-tall, 450-pound baby they named Daisy, about whom Betty subsequently wrote the book “Raising Daisy Rothschild”, later turned into the film The Last Giraffe (now on my reading and viewing lists).

And would you like those kisses ‘al dente’ Photographed by Malcolm King Fontana

Some highlights from our stay:

-Breakfast in the beautiful dining hall, windows flung wide, giraffes sticking their heads and necks in to gently nibble pellets from our palms and our lips

-Watching the Manor dog, Bluka, and the resident warthogs frolic rather aggressively, the giraffes feeding and strolling casually about in the background

-Crawling into bed in our beautiful room to find the old familiar: a hot water bottle swathed in cuddly cloth

-Everything we ate there was delicious but Malcolm and I agreed that our lunch of cold avocado soup, skewered red snapper, saffron rice, chilled rose and ginger sorbet was the best meal either of us could remember

-Talking in the gorgeous drawing room with other guests who hailed from Australia, England and Qatar

“Peeping Tom? I think not.”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

Giraffe Fun Facts:

– The extraordinary height of giraffes is attributed to a ritual known as “necking” where two males fight for reproduction rights by slamming their necks into one another. The giraffes with the tallest and strongest necks are victorious and allowed to reproduce, thus passing these genes on to future generations

-Although rarely heard, Giraffe can moo, hiss, roar and whistle to communicate

-Giraffe have the largest hearts of any land mammal

-A baby giraffe can be more than 6 feet tall at birth

-Ancient Romans and Greeks thought that the Giraffe was a mix between a camel and a leopard (apparently they skipped sex ed). Hence the scientific name; camelopardalis

“Do I really have to kiss it?”
Photographed by Kari King

Not quite ready to leave the African bush behind, we made several stops on our way into the heart of Nairobi. One was the Daphne and David Sheldrick Animal Orphanage, where orphaned baby elephants (and at times baby rhinos) are taken care of by dedicated conservationists. The orphanage is run by Daphne Sheldrick, the wife of the late famous Naturalist, David William Sheldrick.

“A look of elephantine wisdom from day one”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

The first young elephant orphans of Tsavo were Samson, a two year old baby bull orphaned during drought conditions in 1952 and Fatuma, a two year old baby female orphaned by poachers. There followed many others over the subsequent years of David Sheldrick’s 30 years as Warden of Tsavo East National Park. Hand-rearing orphaned elephants is an emotional roller-coaster for those involved as tragedy stalks success and can strike unexpectedly at any moment.

All the elephant orphans are gradually rehabilitated back into the wild elephant community of Tsavo National Park when grown, a transition that is made at their own pace and in their own time, but usually takes approximately eight to ten years. A number of the former Nursery orphans have now had wild born young which they have brought back to show their erstwhile human family.

We arrived at feeding time when the handlers bring the elephants to a viewing area and bottle feed them after which the elephants give themselves a mud bath and tussle around with each other.

“Forever playful in their nature”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

Highlights included watching the especially young babies sticking very close to their human “parents,” seeing the older babies hold onto their bottles with their trunks and sucking down a massive bottle within moments, and watching the elephants flop down into the dirt and roll around like playful puppies. Oh yeah, and merely being close to elephants, not to mention baby elephants!  Have I mentioned how incredibly cool elephants are yet?

Our last stop before the city center was the Karen Blixen Museum which was her home and coffee roasting plant, formerly well outside of Nairobi but now within the city limits. The grounds are beautiful and it was a thrill to see so much of what I had just re-read about in Out of Africa. Karen Blixen wrote acclaimed novels and stories in Danish, French and English under various pen names. She was quite a pioneer and the Kenyans speak of her with respect. Apparently she was the first white person to pay local Africans for the work that they did. It was widely believed that she contracted syphilis from her estranged husband Baron von Blixen and ended up dying from arsenic and mercury poisoning which she took to treat the disease. But medical tests and her writing prowess suggest she did not suffer from the mental degeneration of late state syphilis or from mercury poisoning. Others attribute her weight loss and eventual death to anorexia nervosa.

…..

Answers to Giraffe trivia: Maasai Giraffe are the largest, Reticulated Giraffe can interbreed, Rothschild Giraffe are the most endangered (it is believed that there are fewer than 700 in the wild)

“Aren’t they adorable?”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana