by Evan Antin
Giraffes on the Move
In 1968, a survey of the large mammal population at the Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve, in northeastern Uganda, found more than 2,300 plains zebras, nearly 1,600 elands (a species of antelope), and 899 giraffes. By 1996, the number of each of those species counted was the same: zero. Also gone extinct in the area since 1966? Lions. Elephants. Black rhinos. Each species had been erased from the landscape, and one of the biggest culprits was poaching.
This is a story that’s taking place all over the world and that’s been unfolding in many parts of Africa, one that’s been compounded by wars and political unrest over the past four decades. Civil wars in Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Congo, and other countries saw key wildlife populations brought to—and sometimes past—the brink of local extinction, even in national parks and protected reserves.
This was the case in Pian Upe, where species that belong with the land—after living there for thousands of years—have been MIA for more than a decade.
With the political situation in Uganda relatively stabilized, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has been working with private partners like the Giraffe Conservation Foundation to start restoring these wildlife populations.
It’s impossible to talk about the project that brought me to Uganda without also delving into why anybody would undertake a job as monumental as moving, say, ten giraffes to a new home. Translocating wild giraffes involves a ton of manpower and coordination. These aren’t creatures you can just throw a net over or trap in a cage and expect things to go smoothly. Plus, the process can be risky for both the animals and the people involved.
So why do it? There are three main reasons, starting with the ecological. Giraffes are a keystone species—one an ecosystem depends on—of the East African savannah. They’re mega-herbivores (meaning they consume a lot of vegetation), they’re high browsers (eating things other animals can’t reach), and their digestive process is one of the main ways seeds get dispersed through the region (yep, poop). Poaching away such a critical presence means changing the entire ecosystem, from the birds in the treetops to the insects under the ground and the plant life in between. Giraffes belong in this environment, and the environment relies on them.
The second reason is less tangible but just as important. The giraffe is part of the culture of East Africa in general and Uganda in particular. It’s a travesty that they could be hunted to extinction in the second-largest protected area in the country. Given that humans caused this species wipeout, it seems fair to expect us to make it right. Today the reserve is a safe environment again, one that has the protection not just of the country’s own authorities but also of multinational organizations with the resources to help manage the land and ensure the safety of its animals.
The last reason for going to all the trouble to move a small herd of giraffes 250 miles to new digs is that it can increase the odds of the species’ long-term survival—basically the same logic that keeps us from putting all of our proverbial eggs in one basket. The concentration of giraffes at Murchison Falls National Park and the absence of them at Pian Upe puts the entire population at greater risk than if the animals were more spread out and not all of them were susceptible to every health and security threat.
Those arguments were enough to convince me to show up at Murchison Falls National Park on a sweltering October morning to help make the move happen.
* * *
Looking around at the site of a translocation, the first thing that strikes you about this process is just how many people it takes. The crew was close to forty strong—from representatives of the agencies and NGOs coordinating the move to American and Ugandan veterinarians and biologists, veterinary students, and national park staff. There were plenty of jobs to go around for all of us. I was fast enough, fit enough, and educated enough about the animals to be an asset in a number of different capacities, so I was able to try my hand at most of the jobs over our ten captures.
We were a small army of experts, ready to dart, immobilize, measure, examine, and prep each giraffe for its journey. I hopped into the bed of the truck at the front of the line and squeezed in with the eight riders already there. The truck eased forward and within minutes we were focused on one young male giraffe who was grazing apart from the herd. He was the right age, he looked healthy, and he was functioning independently—a perfect candidate to be part of the new herd at Pian Upe. As we neared the animals, the female closest to us took a few steps, and then a few more, away from our path. When we kept approaching, she took off at a trot, and all around her other members of the herd started moving, picking up speed as they went. Seeing giraffes in captivity is something to appreciate, but seeing them in the wild is nothing short of stunning. Within seconds, these animals were running at nearly forty miles per hour, and yet it looked like it was happening in slow motion. It messes with your mind to see them covering so much ground but looking as though they’re practically hovering in the air.
In order to dart this animal, we’d have to get within about forty yards with an extreme sedative. Because of their size and metabolism, giraffes are uniquely difficult to sedate. You basically have to overdose them to bring them down, using incredibly potent pharmaceuticals that leave little margin for error. To sedate the giraffe, we’d be using a narcotic reserved for large mammal sedation that’s more than a thousand times more potent than morphine. With most species, once you have them sedated, you can monitor their vital functions and then administer a reversal after you’ve finished your veterinary work. For a giraffe, because of the heavy dose it takes to gain temporary control of them, you’ve got to give the reversal as soon as the animal is down to ensure its full recovery.
That means that once you’ve darted one of these magnificent creatures, there’s no going back, no letting it outrun you, no giving up because it takes to terrain that’s not passable with a truck.
We watched and waited. Shooting a dart is not like firing a bullet. The elements, including wind, rain, and even gravity, have an effect on a dart’s trajectory. And you can’t hit a giraffe just anywhere and get the desired effect. If the dart goes through the leg, for example, the drugs trickle out to the ground. If it lodges in the shoulder or scapular bone, the result won’t be impactful enough. The ideal shot goes into muscle in an area where it can absorb quickly and completely.
The dart was fired, and all eyes (and all wheels) turned to the giraffe, who, not surprisingly, took off running when he felt it hit. We radioed to the rest of the team that the shot was a hit, giving them the okay to close in. It would take a few minutes to be sure the sedative had done its job. If the shot was well placed, the giraffe would probably drop in five to six minutes. If not, we’d likely have to re-dart.
We raced across the savannah, keeping pace with the streaking animal. The excitement was palpable among all of us in the truck bed, but we were completely quiet, focused on our jobs. Everyone knew the meticulously devised strategy we were about to implement, and we were quietly, intently waiting to put it into motion.
The Ugandan savannah isn’t overly rocky or mountainous, but it’s no highway, either. Slamming through water and across rough terrain, rocks, and vegetation in a truck bed makes for a violent ride, and each time my body collided with the metal frame, the little medical Jiminy Cricket deep in my brain kept count, no doubt muttering things like Damn, that’s gonna leave a mark. It was all irrelevant in the moment, because the giraffe’s life depended on receiving the reversal, and nothing else really felt like it mattered from the moment the sedative hit until the process was over.
Our truck stayed in tight pursuit, our driver constantly making choices about what path would allow us to keep pace with the giraffe without getting stuck or otherwise disabling the vehicle. We all knew that the key to this whole process was that when this guy started wobbling, we needed to be there and start work immediately.
So there we were, a truckload of hyped-up conservationists crammed together and hauling ass as we gathered ropes and carabiners, he
ad covers and earplugs, test kits, gloves, timers—all the tools we’d need. Half a second behind us was a second truck, filled with ropers, researchers, and the all-important Ugandan veterinarian carrying the sedative’s reversal.
The giraffe began to slow, his gait got stumbly, and all of us knew the time had come. We leaped over the sides of the truck bed and hit the ground running, racing toward the animal. It’s a strange combination of events—rushed and borderline violent, but also calculated to the second, with every team member knowing that his or her job has to be done both quickly and precisely. We had to reach the giraffe before he fell, and just as he began to sink, we were beside him. His body lowered to the ground, but his head stayed up swinging. This posed a danger to both giraffe and relocation crew, and in order to prevent any injuries, the first of us to reach the giraffe were tasked with bringing his head down and holding his powerful frame steady by immobilizing his head and neck.
Every person on the team relies on the others to do their jobs in such a way that all of us and the animal walk away safely at the end. Before anything else, a vet gave the sedative reversal via injection. The second that was done, a flurry of simultaneous actions were in play. Someone put a mask over the giraffe’s face and secured it while someone else inserted two big sock-like plugs into his ears. Those two simple steps would significantly reduce the animal’s stress for the rest of the process. There were people getting blood samples, fur samples, tissue samples, and collecting insects living on the giraffe. There were people assigned to take measurements of the giraffe’s body and monitor his respiration, temperature, and blood temperature—so all around me they were shouting out numbers, which were being recorded by a second circle of team members. One team member—in this case, me—had the job of giving the giraffe a series of injections: an antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory, vitamins, and an anti-parasitic.
All of this all happens insanely fast. From dart to giraffe down is a few minutes, and from down to getting the giraffe back on its feet, about ten to fifteen minutes, with everyone working in concert the entire time.
As I reached the beautiful, graceful, fifteen-hundred-pound, semi-sedated giant, I moved in to administer his injections. Around me, other members of the team were laser focused on their own jobs. I’d watched the process once before, but this was my first hands-on participation, and I was mindful as I crouched down of the number one rule of giraffe wrangling: Stay away from the legs. A giraffe can kick with enough force to kill—and potentially decapitate—all but the biggest mammal. That includes one of the rare predators who’d dare go after one: the lion. I glanced to my right, doing the math as I assessed his powerful body and all four legs. He was on his right side, not peaceful but no longer wildly flailing. I turned my attention to the job at hand.
Seconds later, the giraffe struggled a bit. As I glanced up, I saw his right rear hoof—propelled by all the force this massive animal could muster—cannonballing toward my face. I snapped my head back, my Ugandan adventure flashing by—how eager I’d been, how carefully I’d studied this process, how much this was gonna hurt (if I survived it). One second that hoof had been fifteen feet away; the next it was inches from my eyes.
Mercifully (because there was not a damn thing I could have done to stop it), the kick stopped just before crushing my head. My nerves reset. Everyone on the team started breathing again, and we got the work done. After that, I reminded each person working in that general area that against all odds, a giraffe can reach you there.
Like Dragon Wrangling
While one contingent of the team worked on the giraffe’s health and wellness tasks, another was gearing up for an equally intense job. Roping a giraffe and keeping it safe and in check after a sedation has to be the closest experience to wrangling a dragon that the modern world has to offer. It takes a crew of twelve to sixteen ropers to do the job, and while we on the vet team take our samples and give our injections, these guys are securing a harness around the base of the giraffe’s neck and ensuring that the huge carabiner at its front is properly attached, with three extremely long (about forty feet long) ropes extending out from it. One will eventually be used to guide the giraffe’s head forward. The other two run under the animal’s forelegs and out behind him on each side. Another harness is attached to a carabiner on the bottom of the face mask; its purpose is to lead the head. As with most animals, where a giraffe’s head goes, the body goes, so this one is critical.
I got to do this job on a second-day giraffe capture, and all I can say is that it is a fitness and agility test like no other. My hat goes off to the workers who fearlessly tackled this job for days in a row. As soon as the veterinary tasks on the giraffe are done, four or five people line up on each of these control ropes. The head cover stays on, which is probably the biggest reason the ropers are able to keep up—if the giraffe could see a distant point to run to, it could outrun any ranger, any day. Its top speed can reach thirty-five miles per hour, and not even Usain Bolt himself could keep up with that.
It might seem that the logical thing to do when the giraffe gets to his feet is to hold him back, but this doesn’t work. A giraffe is too strong, so the ropers give him a few minutes to sort his feelings out. Some animals sprint ahead; some shake their heads or kick in frustration. They buck and they jump. In the moment, they’re not happy, and they make that crystal clear. Through it all, the ropers must stay with the giraffe, close enough to maintain some control yet far enough to avoid getting tangled or trampled, remembering that the end game is to move the animal—completely unharmed—into the waiting trailer for transport. The process almost looks like a synchronized dance, with the giraffe leading and a gaggle of ropers on either side of the animal reacting to maintain their distance, all while keeping their ropes from getting crossed. Even an ungainly move by the giraffe has to be met by a smooth, deliberate response from the ropers, which makes it all like a quirky, choreographed performance.
I took a mid-rope position and prepared to hang on no matter what. The blindfolded giraffe rocked his massive body forward then back, then lurched to his feet. Twenty feet back on the rope, I kept my eyes on him, my feet moving, my mind replaying my instructions: Stay with him, but not too close. Don’t let him get to a full-out run. Don’t get dragged. Don’t get tangled.
The closer you are on the rope to the giraffe, the less running you have to do but the more immediate the danger is to you. At the far end of the rope, you’ve got a little distance between yourself and the hooves, but you’ve got to run like hell, especially if the giraffe turns away and you find yourself playing catch-up as if you’re on the tail end in the ultimate game of Crack the Whip.
On one particular capture, our trailer got delayed during the initial chase (not surprising, given the terrain). The time we had with the giraffe down came and went, and we all knew we had no choice but to “walk” this outrageously fast, strong, displeased animal for as long as it took for the trailer to reach us. Trying to maintain a respectful distance and position (the four o’clock and eight o’clock positions behind and to the side of the giraffe are the safest) on rough terrain littered with stones and pocked with wicked acacia thorns—all while trying to keep up with an animal that can outrun you any day of your life—may be the ultimate twenty minutes of cardio. By the time the trailer arrived, the ropers were huffing and puffing, lungs on fire, long past ready to attempt to load their dragon for transport.
Of course, loading a giraffe into a trailer is a big job in its own right. By now the giraffe is a little calmer and maybe getting a little tired, and the ropers move from behind him to a little bit in front and start urging him forward, gently “steering” him toward the open deck. With most of the giraffes we captured in Murchison Falls, all of this went reasonably well—right up until the animal heard its own hoof clank against the metal of the ramp. At that point, the universal reaction from the animals was Whoa! Back the hell up. Giraffes are particular neophobes—afraid of anything new and different—and these guys behave
d true to form. They froze in place, locked their legs, shook their heads, tried to back away—just basically offered every possible physical manifestation of No at their disposal.
Fortunately, even neophobes can get used to anything eventually, and after a few minutes of the unusual feel and sound of hoof on metal, each member of the new herd managed to board the trailer and make the short trip to a holding area. These were all young adults, and giraffes are naturally social creatures, so each time we introduced a new animal to the new herd, we could see they were glad to see one another. They’d look each other over, stand side by side, share food and water, and we could see them relax a little bit.
Free
When the full contingent of ten giraffes was gathered in the outdoor holding area, it was time to embark on a phenomenal parade to Pian Upe. On arrival, they were taken into the reserve, some eight hundred square miles of protected land, and turned loose. Seeing them running together out on that open savannah where giraffes were always part of the ecosystem until people poached them out made for a magical, hopeful moment. It was a testament to what people who are committed to reversing that kind of damage can accomplish. Ivan’s Giraffe Conservation Foundation has agreements with at least a dozen African governments that are participating in the organization’s Giraffe Action Plan, and this wild release extended their reach to no less than a hundred million acres of influence.
