Giraffe birth goes wrong: Video
Published by Wildcaster 9 months ago Tags: adventure, africa, animal kingdom, birth, blogumentary, buffalo, buffalo stampede, conservation, documentary, ecotraining, education, experience, experience adventure, flickr, giraffe, GLTP, gonarezhou, Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, hunting, lions, malilangwe, mashable, narrowcasting, night, Open Content Alliance, pamushana, peace parks, photos, podcasting, predators, stampede, teach, video, wildcasting, wildlife, wildlife documentary, youtube, zimbabwe.The lions did it again. Well eventually.
They had no plans on an early start and were spaced out for most of the evening.
Only after midnight did they make a small effort to get moving. Luckily for them they didn’t have to move too far. They surrounded a herd of impala but soon had their cover blown with the moon now being really bright.
Of course that effort required more time to chill out. While doing so we heard the buffalo herd close by. The lions didn’t show any interest.
About half an hour later they made strides in the direction of the herd and then chaos broke out. The buffalo seeing the lions turned on them. In the thick bush it was utter chaos. Buffalo chasing lions, lions chasing buffalo, dust and bush obscuring anything that looked planned.
But the lions had it all planned. They needed to spook the herd and get them on the run. Then singling out a young calf they darted in amongst those stampeding hooves and grabbed it. There was too much confusion, dust and bush that this time the buffalo didn’t pick up a calf had been caught. The lions ate in peace. Of course that was only peace from the buffalo but not peace from each other. The calf was really small and with 8 lions on it, the bun fight was intense.
It’s amazing how one minute the lions can be so loving and social towards each other, but as soon as food is on the table there is absolutely no regard for each other.
The buffalo herd did eventually come closer on hearing the lions squabbling but they never ventured close enough to hassle them.
The lions were done at dawn moving on to drink at Bandama and then resting in the hills at Chitindigova.
We were heading home early for a change needing extra rest, but that idea came to an abrupt halt when we found this giraffe in the throws of birth. This was so exciting. But as time marched on I soon realised it wasn’t going to happen.
The calf was coming out all wrong. The head and front hooves were out, but the head was below the hooves. This meant the calf was being strangled on its way out. The cow pushed hard, contracting about every 20 minutes but in the 3 hours we were with her there was no change. The calf’s tongue had been hanging out all this time and was dried out. It was probably dead when we arrived.
But now the cow needs to rid herself of the foetus if she is to survive.
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Kim, Kim!
You guys have to help this poor giraffe! She seems in a lot of pain and soon she will get sick and die if the dead foetus does not come out. If an elephant was put down because of a broken leg, and a hyenna darted to remove wire of its neck, I think the giraffe deserves help too! Can’t she be darted and the foetus removed?
Ivanova
I feel the same way, but nature is nature, and perhaps the game reserve doesn’t want to interfere with a “natural process”. I do hope something would be done, however. She would have a horrible death with just infection or lions or whatever.
Kim — Will you keep us posted on what happens?
How horrible for that female giraffe. I understand that vets usually do not interfere if the problem is not human caused. How did the elephant break it’s leg? This is just terrible what this female has to be going through.
Yes Kim, please keep us posted.
It would be a shame to have her die because she can’t expell the calf. What conditions do you intervene? You have shown video of a variety of interventions. Why wouldn’t that be done here?
Kim,
If the park authorities are not moved by any other reason, claiming ‘Nature has it’s own way’, maybe they’re right….
The giraffe definitely needs help…and humans can probably help in a micro level too…..
As Ivanova says, If the Elephant with an ‘E’ can be helped, and a hyena with an ‘H’ can be helped…..then a a giraffe with a ‘G’ should be helped….as a ‘G’ falls in between and ‘E’ and an ‘H’…how’s that for a non-natural reason to help the giraffe…please…
Raj.