As you land to Kenya for a day or two before heading off on a Kenya safari, Giraffe Centre is the perfect destination, barely 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) from Nairobi's city centre to visit in Nairobi.
The main attraction for both school children and visitors is feeding giraffes from a raised observation platform. The Giraffe Center is also home to several warthogs which freely roam the area along with the giraffes.
The African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW), commonly known as the Giraffe Centre, located in Langata, Nairobi, is a non profit organization whose main objective is to provide conservation education to school children and the youth of Kenya.
Therefore your visit is directly contributing to conservation free school education programme in Kenya, through the entrance fees and sales from the teahouse and gift shop.
HIGHLIGHTS:
- There are roughly 95,000 giraffes left in the world and 450,000 elephants
- Giraffe have disappeared from 27 of the 47 counties in Kenya alone
- Giraffe populations have dropped by 40% over the last 30 years
- The African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW) was set up in 1979 to protect the last remaining Rothschild’s giraffes in Kenya.
- At the time there were only 80 surviving individuals in the country. Thanks to their tireless hard work this number has now risen to over 600.
- Since AFEW Giraffe Centre was founded, wild Rothschild’s giraffe numbers have risen from 100 to around 1,800. and over 50 giraffes have been returned to the wild including Margaret, Jock and Waridi who went to Mwea National Reserve in 2018.
- Guests of Giraffe Manor can stroll across the front lawn of the house to visit the AFEW Giraffe Centre, which allows visitors to feed the giraffe from a specially built platform.
- There is information on display about giraffe conservation in Kenya, as well as a short nature walk and gift shop, proceeds of which go towards giraffe conservation in Kenya.
- Today, AFEW Giraffe Centre deals with breeding Rothschild’s giraffes, ecology trips, trainers workshops, national environmental competitions, funding micro projects, it also monitors, evaluates and produces resource materials for environmental activities.
HISTORY
The Rothschild’s giraffe was first named and described by Lord Walter Rothschild, a passionate zoologist. He named the giraffe following an expedition to East Africa in the early 1900’s. When he first found the Rothschild’s giraffes they were free ranging and abundant across Kenya, Uganda and Sudan.
Due to human population expansion, poaching and habitat loss, they are now extinct in Sudan, and there are only thirteen populations remaining in Kenya and Uganda. There are fewer than 670 individuals remaining in the wild today.
In the early 1970’s Betty Leslie-Melville and her husband Jock, discovered 130 of the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe on Soy Ranch, a cattle ranch in Western Kenya. This ranch was earmarked to be subdivided to resettle landless people into agricultural plots, this would of been the end of the Rothschild's giraffe.
Fortunately there was a military threat from Uganda at this time, so half of the land was made into an army base instead, giving Betty and Jock time to relocate four breeding herds to the safety of four national parks. They also moved two young giraffes to their home in a suburb of Nairobi, in order to create awareness of the giraffes plight.
They wrote a book; “Raising Daisy Rothschild", about their experiences. The book was later made into a TV film, “The last giraffe”. During filming more giraffe were moved onto their property in Nairobi to act for the original two, who were now aging.
There suddenly seemed to be a lot of giraffe on the property, which gave Jock the idea to build an education centre so Kenyan schoolchildren could have the opportunity to visit the giraffe and receive conservation education.
In 1980, they raised funds in the United States to build the centre, Africa Fund for Endangered Wildlife was founded (AFEW). Over the years AFEW has purchased the surrounding 60 acres of land surrounding the Langata property, and is paying a mortgage on 40 acres more, to create a sanctuary for the giraffe and preserve a section of habitat in Nairobi.
Every year between 30,000 and 40,000 Kenya students experience the magic of seeing and feeding the giraffe. Another 30,000 to 40,000 general public also visit the centre annually.
AFEW have also raised funds so that breeding herds of 26 giraffes were translocated from Soy Ranch to Ruma Game Reserve, Lake Nakuru National Park and Nasalot game reserve.
In more recent times Rothschild's giraffe have been introduced to Soysambu Ranch, Kigio Conservancy and Sergoit Ranch in Mt Elgon region.
