Giraffes on a Boat

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It sounds like the start of a bad joke: How do you move eight giraffes—including a newborn calf—off an island in Africa’s Western Rift Valley? Answer: It isn’t easy, and it involves a boat, blindfolds, and earmuffs. We follow conservationist David O’Connor on an epic (and awkward) journey to save these endangered animals. For more information about this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard. Want more? To learn more about David O’Connor’s conservation work, check out his organization, Save Giraffes Now. You can also read up on how scientists are trying to prevent giraffes from going extinct. Subscribers can also see what the “giraft” looked like and read more about the giraffe rescue from Lake Baringo. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's kind of a bit Jurassic Parkish that I could, you can hear her rustling through the
0:08.9	bushes, but you can't see her.
0:11.2	And the brush was just so thick and you know with inch long occasion, thorns or you know
0:16.4	the other kind of hooked shaped thorns.
0:19.6	So it was a bit unpleasant on the skin walking through it.
0:22.4	We're on a rescue mission on an island in Lake Boringo, a massive freshwater lake in
0:27.0	Kenya's Rift Valley.
0:28.7	A stranded castaway needs help because the waters of the lake, they're rising fast.
0:35.7	So I bet you wonder what they're looking for.
0:43.7	So it's not a person, they're searching for one of the tallest animals on earth, a giraffe.
0:49.5	Her name is Aseewa.
0:50.5	You can hear the rustling of Aseewa going in the bushes, the occasional warthog mad dash
0:59.9	across the frightened life out of everyone.
1:02.7	That's David O'Connor, a conservationist who works for National Geographic.
1:06.4	He's also president of SAVE Giraffes now.
1:09.1	It's a nonprofit and you can probably guess what they do, giraffe conservation.
1:13.2	We know there's a 19 foot, one that has ton of animal out there, but we can't see her.
1:18.7	We know she's on this liver of an island, but we cannot see her.
1:22.0	It's hard to imagine not being able to spot an animal that's nearly 20 feet tall on a small
1:26.5	island, but there's this thick brush that's growing all over.
1:30.6	So it makes it almost impossible to see her.
1:33.6	And then there's the fact that Aseewa does not want to be found.
	...

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