To Catch a Giraffe

From the Archives... this is from an email I wrote back home last time I was in Africa in 2003, after editing for legibility and relevance. At the time, I was priviledged enough to participate in giraffe capture. I post this because, well, giraffe catching may be the most fun I have ever had.

The really exciting surprise happened on Tuesday when my uncle said he had a job later in the week and I could go with him. You see, he has one of the most exciting jobs on the planet. Trained as a veterinarian, he decided to go into the game capture business. Game capture- catching wildlife- is a small but lucrative business in Namibia. Both the government-owned nature reserves and the game farms are constantly buying and selling and moving wildlife, but of course you can’t just tell the animals to go from one place to another so my uncle atches them. The animal we were going to catch is giraffes. A group of guys who capture animals for a living needed a vet (by law, a vet must be present when large animal tranquillizers are used, since they are 10,000 times more powerful than morphine, and lethal to human beings) and so he had to go off into the bush- near the Etosha pan, for those of you who know Namibia. Off we went.

We finally reached the farm we heard the whole story. The farmer was going to sell the farm and wanted all the giraffes- 10 of them- off of it so that he could sell them separately. It turned out the capture crew- a large group of small but incredibly muscular Africans- were experienced and fearless in game capture but had never caught giraffes. We soon fixed that deficiency. Even better, I got to be a part of the team and help with almost all the parts of the capture.

The giraffe is probably the most technically difficult and dangerous of animals to catch. The reason is that they don’t react well to tranquillizers- they die. However, since a giraffe is much too fast and powerful to catch without being drugged, the game capture guys have come up with an intricate system. A helicopter pilot will fly the vet (in this case my uncle) around over the land until they find a giraffe and then chase it towards the capture team- a bunch of guys waiting in a Landrover. This was especially difficult in our case because the entire area was covered in almost impenetrable bush, so the chopper had to chase the giraffe onto one of the various paths the vehicles travelled and keep them there, at which they were moderately successful. The chopper let us know where he was headed by 2-way radio, and we drove to the place at breakneck speeds, sitting in the back of the Landrover and ducking branches. Once vehicle, giraffe and chopper were close together, my uncle would shoot the giraffe with a tranquillizer dart and the fun would begin.

The capture team then has to catch the giraffe. This has to be well timed- if it goes after the giraffe too quickly, before the drug has taken effect, it will outrun them with ease, but if it waits too long the giraffe will fall on its own and might die. We wait until the giraffe is slowing down and stumbling (as if drunk, and indeed the Afrikaans word used to describe its condition is “dronk”) and then position the vehicle in front of it. Two guys holding a long rope run towards the giraffe, stretching the rope across his chest. As soon as that is done a bunch of other guys grab the rope as well. We then let it slide around the giraffe’s legs and, by pulling, take the giraffe off its feet. As soon as it falls one man runs to its head and holds it down, which keeps the giraffe from rising. Another puts a blindfold over its eyes. Meanwhile the vet has been dropped off by the chopper and rushes over to deliver the antidote to the tranquillizer by injection into the giraffe’s neck. Once that happens the giraffe is safe from poisoning, and we can afford to take our time. Of course, the recovered giraffe is now a lot more difficult to deal with.

While several people keep the animal on the ground by controlling its head, two ropes are looped around the neck. A second Landrover, pulling the giraffe trailer, gets as close as possible to the animal (easier said than done in thick bush). Then the giraffe is released, given a push, and everyone scrambles away as it gains its feet. Using the ropes around its neck, as well as a pair of long ropes tied to the trailer that are crossed behind the giraffe, we then get it into the trailer. This is often extremely difficult since the giraffe struggles, especially when feeling the unfamiliar ramp of the trailer beneath its feet. It is also dangerous for the giraffe, which can break a leg if it falls in the trailer. However, by using a whole lot of manpower, pulling on some ropes and loosening others depending on how the giraffe reacts, one can eventually wrestle it into the trailer. The giraffe is then driven to the larger loading trailer, while my uncle and another man hang on to the top of the trailer, manoeuvring the blindfolded animal’s head away from overhanging branches (and receiving some wicked slashes from thorns in the process.) The poor giraffe is, understandably, anything but calm and makes an awe-inspiring din as it tries to kick its way out of the cast-iron trailer.

Once the large main trailer is reached ropes are passed through the body of the trailer, which as bars like a cage. If there already giraffes in there, the ropes are thrown through one side of the cage and caught on the other. One rope is used to restrain the giraffes already present, two to pull the new giraffe in. The doors to both trailers are flung open and the pulling begins anew. It is pretty easy, though, to transfer the giraffe since it has no where to go but into the main trailer. Once it is inside the doors are slammed shut and some of the more nimble men climb to the top of the trailer and remove the blindfold from the animal.

Throughout all these complicated and difficult processes, the one all-encompassing and oft-repeated mantra is “don’t get kicked.” There is a good reason for this. Any nature book will take you that giraffes can kill a lion with one kick, and they can decapitate a person with ease. Giraffes are inoffensive creatures- they don’t attack people like a buffalo or a hippo might- but anything will defend itself when threatened and the giraffe does so very effectively. It can kick with any one of its four legs, and the hard, saucer-sized hooves slash with lightning speed

No two captures were the same, of course, but the one that will be forever etched in my mind was the fifth giraffe we caught, a big female. The capture should have been picture perfect- she was drugged and driven along a path next to the fence, and was too “dronk” to avoid us as we headed her off. However, the guy on the capture rope lost his nerve- not that I blame him- because the giraffe was huggin the fence, and he was in danger of being crushed by running around to that side. I was running behind these two guys, ready to help with the pulling once the animal was trapped. When the giraffe got past them I grabbed one end of a “head rope” (the head-roping guys run behind the original capture team), ran in front of the giraffe, spanned the rope nicely across its chest and dug my heels in. The result was predictable- I am not as strong as a giraffe.The giraffe tore the rope easily from my hands, but not before giving me wicked rope-burn on my left hand and causing me throwing me rather spectacularly onto the ground, twisting my right ankle. It did slow the animal just enough that the capture team could catch up to it and encircle it with their rope. This time we got it right, and with many people on the rope- I made sure to get my left, healthy hand on it- we threw the massive animal down. I felt a savage joy as it crashed to the ground.

However, this was not the end of the story. While we were still getting the head-ropes fastened, and before the trailer was positioned properly, the guys holding the giraffe down slipped and it staggered to its feet, shaking the blindfold off in the process. What followed was a truly incredible spectacle that I wish was caught on tape. Able to see, the giraffe decided that a good offence was the best defence. Lashing out with its hooves, shredding bushes like paper, it rushed towards the guys on one of the ropes, which fled for their lives. The giraffe would then turn and run towards another group of guys- remember, there were three ropes around the giraffe- sending them scattering while the team that had fled before rushed after the rope they had just dropped to stop the animal. All of us had our turn running and pulling and it was pretty intense. The giraffe soon rid itself of every rope except one, and it would have gotten clean away, but one of the guys wrapped the rope end around a tree, and while he and I and several others hung on, the rest of the team grabbed the capture rope and wrapped the giraffe up again. Everyone was relieved then when animal came down a second time, and once we got the blindfold back on it was loaded without further difficulty.