On June 18th and 19th Tanganyika Wildlife Park will be hosting our annual Giraffe Weekend. This event is devoted to all things giraffe! Throughout the weekend, we will be offering many different giraffe-themed activities, some of which will allow you to get up close and personal with our awesome reticulated giraffes. All proceeds raised on giraffe related experiences and merchandise over the weekend will be donated to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF). Tanganyika will also be matching your donations to help giraffes in the wild even more! Last year we raised $3,000 for giraffe conservation and can’t wait to help again this year!
Exclusive Giraffe Weekend Experiences
This year we are excited to be offering some special experiences over the duration of Giraffe Weekend 2022. These three experiences will take you behind the scenes to our Africa/Asia barn where our reticulated giraffes are housed.
Our first exclusive giraffe weekend experience that will be offered is our Giraffe Training experience. Training animals can be very beneficial to an animal’s healthcare. On this behind the scenes tour, you will learn about giraffe training from one of their keepers, watch a demonstration, and then you’ll also get to help train some of our giraffes! This experience will be offered at 11:30 am on Saturday and Sunday.
Have you ever wanted a totally unique painting done by a giraffe? Well you are just in luck! If you sign up for our Giraffe Painting Experience you will get to pick the colors you want for your painting and will get to watch it happen! This experience will be offered at 1:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday.
Another awesome experience we will be offering is the giraffe hoof trim demonstration. Giraffes, like horses, need a little help when it comes to keeping their hooves in good condition. When you book this experience, you will see how our giraffes are trained to participate in a hoof trim. This is a perfect opportunity for anyone who is interested in becoming a keeper themselves or any giraffe-lover! The giraffe hoof trim will be offered at 2:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday.
If you would like to book any of these experiences, please CLICK HERE or feel free to reach out to us!
More Giraffe-Themed Fun
Make sure to stop by our giraffe deck and participate in some of our other fun activities. We will have a table set up near the giraffe deck that will have bio facts, a raffle, games, and more!
Do you have a competitive spirit? You can test your skills at our ring toss and cornhole then test your knowledge with our giraffe ID game.
Also make sure to stop by our gift shop where we will have a table devoted to all-things giraffe!
Need to cool off? You can hang out at Tanganyika Falls and get splashed by a bucket of water from our resident giraffe. Visit this link to learn more about our Tanganyika Falls.
Fast Giraffe Facts
Here are some fun giraffe facts you can share with your friends to get them excited about our upcoming celebration of giraffes:
- When you visit us, make sure you take a close look at the giraffes’ tongues and you’ll see that they are actually purple! In their natural habitat, giraffes will spend most of their day eating leaves from the top of the canopy. Therefore, giraffes spend a good chunk of the day with their tongues out and this purple coloration prevents the tongue from getting sunburnt!
- We all know giraffes are tall, but how tall are they really? The reticulated giraffes at Tanganyika range from 14 feet to almost 16 feet tall! Females are generally shorter than males, but not by much. Giraffe calves are surprisingly tall as well. When they are born, giraffe calves are about 6 feet tall! Make sure to ask our keepers how tall Davis is when you visit!
- Giraffes give birth standing up! This means when a calf is born, it falls about 6 feet to the ground. While this seems unsafe to us, the shock of this fall stimulates the calf to take its first breaths.
What is the Current Conservation Status of Giraffes in the wild and How does Tanganyika Help?
Several species and subspecies are listed as critically endangered or endangered by the IUCN Red List. In fact, some areas that were traditionally regarded as prime giraffe habitat have lost about 95% of their population. The GCF estimates that there are only about 117,000 giraffes throughout Africa. Thankfully, this is a 20% increase from the wild giraffe population in 2015. While this is an encouraging sign and gives many of us confidence that our efforts are working, there is still more work to do.
The newest effort of GCF is to bring giraffes back to Mozambique. Due to many years of civil unrest, there are only about 250 giraffes left in Mozambique. Over the next five years, GCF and the Mozambique government plan to move 350 giraffes into the country. Tanganyika Wildlife Park is thrilled to be directly aiding GCF in their attempt to reestablish these giraffe populations. You can help us with the conservation of these amazing creatures on June 18th and 19th when you participate in our Giraffe Weekend experiences and more. Learn more about GCF by visiting this link.
To participate in giraffe weekend activities you will need admission to the park, so don’t forget to make your reservations for this fun-filled weekend! We hope to see you soon at our giraffe celebration!
About the Author: Hope has loved animals her whole life, but it wasn’t until a visit to Tanganyika Wildlife Park in 2020 that she decided to change her college major to Wildlife and Conservation Biology. The following summer, she started working as a Guest Ambassador at Tanganyika with aspirations to become a keeper some day. She loves to teach guests about all of our amazing animal ambassadors during experiences, especially the carnivores. When she’s not sharing her love of animals with others, Hope enjoys reading, riding her horse named Elvis, and spending time with her dogs.
