Skip to main content

The first rains of the season finally came in early October but as it was just light, scattered showers they brought very little relief to the severely dry conditions in the area. The communities and livestock continue to struggle, but everybody is hopeful that these early rains will bring out the first tinges of green grass to sustain the animals until more rain falls in the coming few months.

Luckily the giraffe and other wildlife are still doing ok in this dry and arid region.

During their September field trip, our research team was treated to some incredible sightings: from the usual suspects including giraffe (of course), elephant, oryx, and zebra to lion wandering in the Hoanib River as well as a lioness on a fresh zebra kill. She had already eaten her fill and was guarding it while resting in a shady bush nearby. Our team almost drove past without seeing her at all, when some slight movement triggered their attention. It is always amazing how well these predators seem to hide from us whilst we are so eagerly searching for them.

When our team returned to the north-west in October, they were treated to some really special sightings including a rhino mum and calf as well as some adorable baby elephant antics. Have you ever seen a baby elephant do ‘sand’ angles? Certainly a first for us, with mum foraging nearby. And we even have the photos to show for it!

And then there was an exciting early morning encounter with one of the most impressive black-maned lion we have ever encountered in the area. He was nice enough to announce his impending arrival with a roar before he wandered through our camp – allowing our team a swift escape into our trusted research vehicle, so we could observed him safely. Luckily for our research team he was clearly en-route to somewhere more exciting as he barely gave the tent a second glance. A great story to come home with … And then there was the story of the broken down research vehicle, but we will leave that one for another day …

Let’s rather talk about giraffe!

Our last report mentioned our Africa-wide Twiga Tracker programme and the additional seven giraffe in the far north that we had recently fitted with some bling (aka GPS ossi-units). Are you wondering how these giraffe are doing and just how far each giraffe travels in a day or a week? We can happily report that all giraffe are doing well. We are collecting great data on their movements and learning a lot about where they like to spend their time.

We are seeing some interesting differences between the male and female giraffe we tagged. For example Ben, a male giraffe who is typically found in the Hoanib River, travels long distances at a time. In two weeks, he roamed over 80km covering a large area of the river, plains, and mountains. Sadly, Ben lost his ossi-unit in October. He likely knocked it off when sparring/necking and probably didn’t even notice. Our other male, Jackson, shows a similar extensive roaming pattern in the far north, so keep your fingers crossed that Jackson keeps his ossi-unit on for a bit longer and we can continue to follow him online.

The ladies, however, have a different agenda with most females like Ranger and Coffee Girl typically staying in their ‘home river’, only moving up and down river for 10 to 15km. Interestingly, they seem to walk just as much as the gents, just in a smaller range. So why the difference? Males tend to travel longer distances looking for females for breeding and often spar/fight over these ladies if there is competition for her attention.

Dorothy is one of the female giraffe we recently fitted with an ossi-unit. When we spotted her earlier this year, we suspected she was pregnant – possibly in her third trimester. Giraffe have a gestation period (pregnancy) of approx. 15 months, so the third trimester is still five months long. You can probably imagine that we were thrilled when we spotted Dorothy in October in the company of a very young calf in the dry riverbed of the Khumib River. The calf was just too cute and judging by the floppy ossicones and the visible umbilical cord it was probably less than two weeks old at the time. But check for yourself in the first image above.

It is always great to see new additions to the giraffe population and it is great sign for the future of giraffe in northwestern Namibia. Meanwhile, Dorothy and the rest of the tagged giraffe continue to send us fascinating data and help us to understand their movements and how they use their habitat. Results from this research in northwestern Namibia (and other parts of Africa) helps us inform giraffe conservation decisions all throughout their range.

Did you know that giraffe ‘horns’ are called ossicones? They are not attached to the skull at birth and lie flat. When the giraffe is very young, they are floppy and only fuse with the scull after a few weeks. They then start growing from the bottom up.

Sightings

We have some exciting news to share about some of our adopted giraffe. As you may have read before, our long-term giraffe conservation research programme in northwestern Namibia was started by GCF Co-founder and Director Julian Fennessy during his PhD research in the late 1990s. This was before digital photography and in those early days he was shooting with film. That is right, take a picture and wait weeks or longer to see if it looks any good. At that time, giraffe were also less used to people and vehicles as there was very little traffic and hardly any tourism in the area. As a result, giraffe were often rather skittish and it was difficult to get close to them for a perfect photo. Combine these two factors and consider the cost of developing film and printing images, and you can imagine how difficult it was to identify giraffe in those days.

We recently sat down with Julian’s old photos and tried to match them to our new giraffe database and guess what? We found three of our adoptees in these old photos! Julian had photographed Coffee Bean, Eros and Windy as youngsters as part of his original research. Check out these baby (Coffee Bean, Eros, Windy in this order above) vs grown-up photos to see how they have turned out. Isn’t baby Coffee Bean (AKA Lucky – the original name Julian had given him) just adorable?!

Read more about what what all our adopted giraffe have been up to these last few months.

Coffee Bean

Coffee Bean – Oct 2020c

November 3, 2020

Coffee Bean – Oct 2020b

November 3, 2020

Coffee Bean – Oct 2020a

November 3, 2020

Coffee Bean was spotted snacking on Ana tree pods together with Peace and a young calf. As we still no little about family relations in giraffe, we have no idea if he might be the calf’s dad or maybe he is checking out if Peace is ready for mating. Female giraffe can get pregnant shortly after giving birth, so males have to be in the right place at the right time.

Eros

Eros – Nov 2020b

December 18, 2020

Eros – Nov 2020a

December 18, 2020

Eros – Oct 2020a

November 3, 2020

Eros is often spotted alone but sometimes we find him hanging out with other older bulls, in this case Coffee Bean and Long Spot. Recently, these three guys gave the lodge guests at Hoanib Valley Camp a special treat when they visited the waterhole together. The guests were so excited to see them that they forgot to take a picture!

Dobby

Dobby – Nov 2020c

December 18, 2020

Dobby – Nov 2020b

December 18, 2020

Dobby – Nov 2020a

December 18, 2020

We were excited to see Dobby again although he only made one brief appearance over the last few months. We spotted him in a large bachelor group on the Hoarusib River plains. With his lighter coat pattern, Dobby readily blends into the bushes and it is hard to find him at times. So it was great to see him out in the open and still going strong.

Kaoko

Kaoko – Oct 2020b

November 3, 2020

Kaoko – Oct 2020a

November 3, 2020

Kaoko – Aug 2020b

September 28, 2020

The Hoarusib River would not be the same without Kaoko. She has been a firm fixture of all our recent trips in the area and we regularly see her roaming in a large herd of giraffe. She loves hanging out on the plains near Puros chowing down on all the Salvadora bushes and Acacia (now Vachellia or Senegalia) trees. In the afternoons, she is often seen with her pals on the bare gravel plains, having a lie down or staring off into the distance ruminating over her plans for the following day.

Kunene

Kunene – Oct 2020a

November 3, 2020

Kunene – April 2020a

May 13, 2020

Kunene – Nov 2019b

February 18, 2020

We found Kunene recently in a group of five including a very new calf. Maybe she is working on her auntie skills or she is preparing to raise her own calf sometime soon?

Monkey

Monkey – Oct 2020b

November 3, 2020

Monkey – Oct 2020a

November 3, 2020

Monkey – Aug 2020

September 28, 2020

Monkey surprised us a few weeks ago. We found her hanging out in the Hoarusib River with a small group of giraffe around midday on day and just over 24 hours later, we spotted her again, but this time in the Khumib River. She was in the company of one of the male giraffe from the previous day, but also three different friends that we regularly see the Hoarusib River. The group would have walked over 30km overnight through some very barren land! Not a bad effort!

Windy

Windy – Aug 2020

September 28, 2020

Windy – May 2020b

June 9, 2020

Windy – May 2020a

June 9, 2020

We spotted Windy a few times recently and we can now confirm that she is indeed pregnant. In October, we could see that her udders are developing, suggesting that she should give birth very soon. Good Luck Windy! We will be back up here soon and will be on the lookout. Fingers crossed that we can get a glimpse of her new addition then.

Given the vast extend of our programme area and the fact that only a small part of it is accessible by car, giraffe can easily hide from our team. Winky Wonk and Muffin are definitely winning the game of hide and seek with our research team at the moment. In fact, Muffin wins hoof down, as he has given us the slip all year long. Most likely, he has left the research area, possibly for greener treelines in the south, but we are hopeful that with good rains he might return north. We will keep on the lookout for him and will make sure to report back immediately, once we seem him again.

That is all from us for 2019. We cannot wait to see what 2020 brings – hopefully some much anticipated rains!

Wishing you a joyful festive season and happy holidays from all of us at GCF.

Thanks again for your support.

You continue to make giraffe conservation in north-western Namibia and throughout Africa a reality!

Get Involved, Stay Involved

Give

Donations are the bread-and-butter of our conservation work.

Your donations directly contribute to our ability to ensure a sustainable future for giraffe in Africa.

Donate Now

Adopt

Giraffe Adoptions give you a personal connection to GCF’s work.

Much like donations, adoptions directly fund our conservation work.

Adopt a Giraffe

Spread the Word

Wear our official apparel to support our work, and our message.

By buying official GCF gear, you’re supporting our work in two ways:

  1. You are literally wearing the message to help spread the word about giraffe endangerment.
  2. Funds from each purchase directly support our conservation work in Africa.
Shop for Giraffe

Join the discussion 8 Comments