They made it!

After 4.5 days of travel and over 2,600 km …

… ten South African giraffe arrived safely in Malawi’s Majete Wildlife Reserve.

In an epic journey, 10 South African giraffe travelled from a private sanctuary in South Africa to their new home in Malawi. In preparation for this longest road translocation of wild giraffe, the animals spent a few weeks in a boma before embarking on their adventure and ensuring that they could be fed and watered en route.

What a relief when all giraffe (and the drivers) arrived safely in Majete Wildlife Reserve after 4.5 days and two land border crossings (South Africa – Mozambique – Malawi).

Soon after their arrival late at night, the truck doors were opened and the giraffe took their first tentative steps on Malawi’s soil into a boma. They were given a clean bill of health the next morning and were then released into the reserve. These new additions bolster the existing giraffe population that was introduced in 2018 – also with the support of GCF and in collaboration with African Parks and the Malawi Department of National Parks and Wildlife – read more about the initial reintroduction here.

Majete Wildlife Reserve is located in the Lower Shire Valley at the southern-most section of Africa’s Great Rift Valley in Malawi. Extensive poaching during the late 1980s and 1990s had rendered most large and medium sized mammals locally extinct. Widespread logging, human encroachment and intensive fishing further threatened the reserve, when African Parks was mandated by the Malawi Department of National Parks and Wildlife to manage and rehabilitate the reserve in 2003. This giraffe translocation is part of a large-scale and successful rewilding effort of the reserve, which is now again considered a prime wildlife destination in Malawi.