The remains of two unique white giraffes, an adult female and her baby, were found in a Kenyan nature reserve, the Hirola Conservation Program (HCP) said in a statement on Tuesday. Locals found the carcasses. HCP believes poachers killed the animals.
The white giraffes had been missing for a while. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) confirmed that their team has seen bones of the giraffes in Ishaqbini Hirola Conservancy. They think the bones are four months old.
KWS says they are busy investigating the murder of the two unique animals. On Twitter, they also get some backlash from people saying they did not do enough to protect them. It’s not clear why the animals were murdered.
We are investigating reports of the deaths of a white Girrafe and a calf in Ishaqbini Conservancy in Garissa County.
— KWS (@kwskenya) March 10, 2020
Our teams on the ground have seen bones believed to be those of the two giraffes. The bones are estimated to be four months old.
In 2017 the white giraffes made headlines when they were first spotted in Kenya. It was a mother with a male baby. Two years later, in September, the mother gave birth to another baby. It’s believed that the newborn and his mother have been killed. Only one white giraffe remains in Kenya.
Their skin is white because of a condition called leucism, which causes their skin cells to have no pigmentation.
