Until a few days ago there were three of these rare white giraffes. Poachers have killed two of them. The mother giraffe and her calf were found dead in Garissa, a town in eastern Kenya.

The British newspaper the Daily Mail reported that the rare white giraffe exists only in Kenya and that until now there had been three. With poachers having killed his mate and calf, the male giraffe is now alone in the world.

The Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy, a Kenyan wildlife conservation organisation, said on Thursday that the two white giraffes had been killed by armed poachers. Their skeletons were found lying on the ground.

Expressing grief over the killings, the conservancy's manager Mohammed Ahmednoor said it was a sad day for Ijara (an area of Garissa) and for all Kenyans. "We are the only community in the world that takes care of these rare giraffes," he said.

He said the killing of these rare and unique giraffes was a severe blow to efforts to keep the species alive, and also a heavy blow to tourism and research in Kenya's remote areas.

Experts say the giraffe's white colour does not come about the way a person's skin turns white with leucoderma.

The rare giraffe got its white colour through leucism. According to the report, leucism produces light colours such as white or pale inside the tissue.

Staff of the Hirola Community Conservancy, who had been looking after the three giraffes, are overwhelmed with grief at losing two of them. "They were very calm and were not disturbed even when we went very close. The mother would pace within a few yards of us, while the calf hid in the bushes," they said.

A white giraffe was reportedly seen in a national park in Tanzania in 2016, but there is no information on what happened to that animal.

According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, giraffe numbers in Africa have fallen by 30 per cent since 1980, and by 95 per cent in some regions.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.