Elaine feeding the Rothschild Giraffe and receiving a sloppy "French" kiss from Stacey!
We also a lecture about the types of giraffes and their habits.
Life as a giraffe sanctuary
Shortly after purchasing the Manor, the Leslie-Melvilles learned that the only remaining Rothschild giraffes in Kenya were in danger due to a compulsory purchase by the Kenyan government of an 18,000-acre (73 km2) privately owned ranch at Soy, near Eldoret, which was their sole habitat. Inevitably the purchase would result in the land being sub-divided into smallholdings, and the giraffes being slaughtered.[1]Since the Manor was already home to three wild bull giraffes (nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry), the Leslie-Melvilles agreed to rehome one of the giraffes, an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m), 450-pound baby they named Daisy, about whom Betty subsequently wrote the book "Raising Daisy Rothschild", later turned into the film The Last Giraffe.[2]
Daisy was soon joined by another baby giraffe, Marlon (named after Marlon Brando), and since then the Manor, in conjunction with locations such as Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire, England, has run a breeding programme to reintroduce the Rothschild giraffe into the wild to expand the gene pool. At any one time the Manor has around a dozen giraffes in residence, although at present there are only eight,[3] and part of the land of the Manor is given over to the Giraffe Centre, run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, a charitable organisation set up by Jock Leslie-Melville in 1972.[4] By tradition the giraffes themselves are named after individuals who have contributed significantly (whether financially or otherwise) to the work of AFEW, such as Lynn, named for author and journalist Lynn Sherr, a giraffe devotee who wrote an entire book devoted to the creature.[5]
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