The Aspinall Foundation

Real Birthday Fun at Howletts This Easter

Posted by The Aspinall Foundation on 29-Feb-2016 09:00:00

Cillian and Settanta are doing very well here at Port Lympne Reserve. As we near the end of the summer months for now the giraffes are still out on the African Experience exhibit here at the park during the day. This means they have around 100 acres of landscape to explore and the great advantage of many many trees to devour! For those of you that don’t know ‘Cillian’ is a very greedy giraffe so he thoroughly enjoys this time of year!

For the winter this year we are hopefully having some new browse feeders installed at the giraffe house allowing myself (Gareth, their keeper) to hang even more food from the ceiling, so this too will please ‘Cillian’ in the winter months when he doesn’t fancy going out in the rain.

The other members of the giraffe herd are doing well also. ‘Valentino’ our new young Rothschild bull is getting used to being part of the herd and is most definitely liking the company of our two Rothschild’s females ‘Lunar and Lehana’ . He spends a lot of time in their company so hopefully as they grow older we may hear the clippity clop of tiny giraffe hooves! Albeit in 15 months though! (The length of a giraffe’s gestation period). For now though they seem happy just being friends with the odd bit of giraffe flirting thrown in.

June 21st this year saw an exceptionally important day for giraffe - as it was the second World Giraffe Day to be held.

Last year’s day was a huge success and this year the day was even better with lots of visitors to the park learning about the importance of giraffe conservation! Lots of fun and games were held to get more people interested and excited in giraffes (they are the best).

Also teaching people about giraffe population numbers in the wild. Did you know…..

There are 9 giraffe subspecies and there aren’t many left.

The Masai giraffe - Giraffa camelopardalis.tippelskirchi less than 37 000 left

The Angolan giraffe- Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis less than 20 000 left

The South African giraffe -Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa less than 12 000 left

The Recticulated giraffe- Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata less than 4 700 left

The Kordofan giraffe -Giraffa camelopardalis antiquorum less than 3 000 left

The Rothschild’s giraffe -Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi less than 1000 left

The Thornicroft giraffe - Giraffa camelopardalis thornicrofti less than 1000 left

The Nubian giraffe- Giraffa camelopardalis camelopardalis less than 650 left

The West African giraffe- Giraffa camelopardalis peralta less than 300 left

You can adopt Cillian and Settanta today and receive a certificate, fact sheet and wallpaper as well as twice yearly updates! 

 

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