About

Hello up there!

I am Zaafarana a Rothschild’s giraffe, have you visited me at Al Ain Zoo? If you haven’t, then it’s time to plan a trip! Did you know that we were named after a very famous person, Walter Rothschild, a London zoologist, a member of the well-known banking family, and the founder of Tring Museum? He also has insects, fish, spiders and various types of fauna named after his surname; isn’t that very neat?

I am sometimes called a Baringo giraffe, named after Lake Baringo in Kenya where my kind lives, and I am also known as the Ugandan giraffe. The International Union for Conservation of Nature officially recognizes one giraffe species and nine sub-species. According to them, we Rothschild giraffes are classified as ‘near threatened’ on the red list category of endangered animals.

Threats

Rothschild’s giraffes used to be on the IUCN’s Red List under its “endangered” category, but in 2018 we were moved to the safer “near threatened” category, thanks to efforts to protect the species by establishments like Al Ain Zoo, Uganda Conservation Foundation, and other giraffe conservation centers. There are only a few locations left where you can see giraffes like me in the wild, including Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya and Murchison Falls National Park in northern Uganda. Threats to our population include predators such as leopards, lions, crocodiles, and hyenas, and the four IUCN recognized threats: habitat loss, civil unrest, poaching, and ecological changes.

Conservation Action

We are one of only two subspecies of giraffes that have improved their conservation status from ‘endangered’ to ‘vulnerable’ and ‘near threatened’, the other is the Western African giraffe.

Like many endangered animals, we need help from you and the world’s conservationists to help us breed and translocate to the wild to rebuild our population. Conservation education is vital to creating awareness of our plight, especially among the youth, and joint efforts between schools, governments, and conservation organizations, like those at Al Ain Zoo, are needed before we become extinct.