| Our October edition front cover features a tower of South African giraffes recently released at Lalibela Private Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape as part of their extensive game repopulation project (read Vernon Wait’s report on page 10).
According to Wikipedia, as of 2016 a maximum of 31,500 southern giraffe (Giraffa giraffa) remain in the wild, with around 45 kept in captivity (zoos), while the total giraffe population worldwide is under 90,000 in the wild and around 1,144 in zoos. Despite these rather low numbers, the IUCN has assessed the giraffe species as a whole to be of “Least Concern” from a conservation perspective, even though giraffes have disappeared from their historic range including Eritrea, Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal. They may also have disappeared from Angola, Mali, and Nigeria. Thankfully, private game reserves like Lalibela are contributing to the preservation of giraffe populations in southern Africa.
Have you ever heard a giraffe hum? It’s the weirdest sound – take a listen on the Wikipedia link above (scroll down to ’Social Life’).
BTW, it’s the 4th Lilizela Tourism Awards finals on Sunday 16th. The November edition will feature all of the Provincial and National winners. Support them – they deserve it for upping the ante in South African Hospitality & Tourism quality standards.
Note: I’ve done away with the hyper-linked page numbers for page PDF downloads, but all articles in this issue have been linked to open the blog post in your web browser.
Yours in Tourism,
Des Langkilde. editor |
