Wild Nature Institute’s educators Patrick and Thomas traveled to Naivasha, Kenya from 27 October to 2 November, to lead a special ‘giraffe camp’ hosting 46 children ages 10-14 from low-income areas of Nairobi. The kids read and discussed our storybook Juma the Giraffe, did deeper learning activities about giraffes, played eco-themed games, constructed giraffe puzzles, and learned all about giraffes, giraffes, giraffes! Then they visited Lake Nakuru National Park to see Rothschild’s giraffes up close and personal!

Everyone received a copy of Twiga na Rafiki Zake, our giraffe-themed activity book, and a Celebrating Africa’s Giants t-shirt.

As always, all of this was made possible thanks to donations from our amazing partners! Thank you everyone for supporting hands-on giraffe-themed environmental education for African children and making learning about giraffes fun and memorable.

Wild Nature Institute launched a program in July 2024, called “Food4Thought” with Armonk2Africa. This is a free school lunch program in one of our most underserved schools, Esilalei Primary School. Most of the children at Esilalei Primary School are unable to pay for school lunch and therefore the kids go through the entire school day without eating. Children cannot learn properly on an empty stomach and feeding them improves their attention spans and capacity to learn.

In partnership with the community of Armonk, New York, who raised more than $10,000, we were able to provide a healthy lunch of beans and corn for all 600 kids in the entire school every day for an entire school year, as well as pay a local Maasai woman to cook the food, thus providing another Tanzanian with steady income. The head teacher reports that attendance is up from before the free lunches were provided, and kids even come to the school during holidays for the lunch. After a full year of successful delivery of these free lunches, the kids are healthier and happier, so we decided to expand the program to two additional primary schools, Jangwani (700 students) and Baraka (600 students), where the kids also were not regularly eating lunches due to the inability of the parents to pay, and to prevent the temptation for these under-served communities to send all their kids over to Esilalei. This means Wild Nature Institute is providing free, healthy lunches for 1,900 children every single school day!

These three schools are located within savanna rangelands that are important movement routes for wildebeests, zebras, and elands, as well as giraffe and elephants. Thus, they are critical for wildlife conservation and these communities also experience conflicts with wildlife. 

At the beginning of October, we purchased a three-month supply of beans and corn for all three schools, enough for the remainder of the year. We organized celebrations at each school to introduce the program and show them the food, and everyone was so excited and happy. 

Wild Nature Institute has just completed our 15th year of photographic surveys for giraffes in the magnificent Tarangire Ecosystem. Using photographs, we identify each giraffe by its unique spots. We are tracking thousands of individual giraffes including where they go, which other giraffes they spend time with, and their survival and birth rates. We can determine which places are important for giraffes, and help make sure those places are protected and connected. Thank you to all of our generous donors for funding our giraffe surveys over so many years. We are learning about the lives of wild giraffes, to help people and giraffes to thrive together in the savanna.

With our partners we are running the world’s largest #giraffe #research and #education program, helping people and giraffes to thrive together.
30,000 kids reached
6,300 giraffes monitored
 
Sacramento Zoo
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
The Living Desert
Tulsa Zoo
Tierpark Berlin
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
Zoo Miami
Como Park Zoo & Conservatory
Roosevelt Park Zoo
Roger Williams Park Zoo
Fresno Chaffee Zoo
Toronto Zoo
The Woman Who Loves Giraffes
PAMS Foundation
andBeyond Travel
NomadTanzania

World Snake Day was on July 16th, and this year the Wild Nature Institute and the Wild Snake Project collaborated on our annual “Snake Blitz” event with a full week of community education. The aim is to foster a sense of wonder about snakes, and inspire a generation to understand and care for snakes as they do for other wild animals--while also teaching people how to avoid conflicts and what to do if bitten, thus "saving people, saving snakes." During the blitz, scientists and educators reached hundreds of children in the Tarangire region of Tanzania—a place rich in biodiversity, including snakes, and the focal area of Wild Nature Institute's Celebrating Africa’s Giants environmental education program and our long-term giraffe research.

The Snake Blitz was led by snake warriors from Wild Snake Project in Kenya. WSP's Dickson (pictured above) and Collins spent a few days training our two new Wild Nature Institute educators (Patrick and Thomas) about snakes, and how to effectively teach schoolchildren about the importance of snakes in the environment, snake identification, and snake bite first aid. After this training, the entire team visited five different primary schools, teaching 550 children through hands-on games and activities, distributing 700 Swahili-language snake activity books, and bringing 130 children to visit the Meserani Snake Park and Clinic to see snakes up close and personal.

Wild Nature Institute's education program coordinator Veila said “The kids were very happy to learn and see snakes, most of the kids admitted that they have been fighting snakes for no reason, but from now on they will stop that, and they will teach other people that snakes have no problem if they are not disturbed. When they saw a snake, they will leave it, they will tell other not to kill them as well.”

It was a fun and successful week for the Wild Snake Project and Wild Nature Institute, and we thank all of you who made this week memorable!  As always, we are deeply grateful for the support of our funders.

This year's World Giraffe Week, held from 16 to 21 June, 2025 in Tanzania and Kenya was a resounding success. The theme this year was the critical relationship between giraffes and trees. Wild Nature Institute (in the Tarangire region, Tanzania) partnered with Grumeti Fund in western Serengeti Tanzania; Eden Thriving in Naivasha Kenya; and Somali Giraffe Project near Garissa Kenya, to create giraffe/tree-themed artwork, and in some areas we held large community education events ("bonanzas"), took children to see giraffes in their local national parks or game reserves, and planted native Acacia trees to improve giraffe habitat. We also printed 400 t-shirts with the  beautiful logo for World Giraffe Week 2025, which connected all of our efforts together. 

Thanks to our donors, we were able to provide the funding for park visits in Tarangire and Naivasha, community events in Tarangire, artwork supplies in Naivasha and Tarangire, tree planting in Tarangire, and the t-shirts for all 4 areas. Thanks for helping us make World Giraffe Week 2025 a resounding success in east Africa. We are already looking forward to Giraffe Week 2026!!!

Click on the links below to view all of the activities and fun facts about giraffes and trees for World Giraffe Day and World Giraffe Week!

Celebrate the fascinating relationship between giraffes and trees and the broader web of life that connects humans, plants, animals, and insects. 

The giraffe, one of Africa’s most iconic animals, is facing a crisis. Despite their worldwide popularity, giraffe populations in the wild are declining due to illegal killing and habitat loss. A new study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management reveals that targeted conservation strategies—particularly those focused on adult survival—are essential to reverse these trends in the Serengeti Ecosystem.

Led by scientists from the Wild Nature Institute, the University of Zurich, and their international partners, the study shows that giraffe numbers in the center of Serengeti’s protected areas have stabilized since the late 2000s, following major declines in previous decades. However, populations near the edges of the protected areas continue to shrink.

“We needed to understand whether protected areas in the Serengeti were effectively conserving giraffes,” said Dr. George Lohay, co-author and Head Scientist at the Grumeti Fund. “Our results clearly show where giraffes are doing well and where urgent action is needed.”

The research team compiled multiple years of photographic data identifying 1,520 individual Masai giraffes across four subpopulations. Using both Bayesian and frequentist modelling approaches, they estimated survival rates, birth rates, population densities, and long-distance movements. Their findings highlight significant differences in adult survival among subpopulations, with lower adult survival rates linked to population declines.

“Adult survival emerged as the strongest demographic driver of giraffe population trends,” said Dr. Dominik Behr, co-lead author and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich. “This means that improving adult survival is key if we want to prevent further declines.”

The study also found extremely limited movement between subpopulations—only one giraffe was observed crossing between them. This suggests strong subpopulation insularity and limited gene flow, which may increase the risk of local extinction due to low genetic diversity.

“Giraffes have unique coat patterns, which we use to identify individuals from photographs,” explained Dr. Monica Bond, co-lead author from the University of Zurich and Wild Nature Institute. “We combined all available giraffe images—taken during road surveys and from camera traps—to track individual fates and estimate demographic trends over time.”

Earlier studies in the 1970s and 2000s had documented dramatic population declines, but recent changes in land use and tourism warranted an updated analysis. The new data show that while central and southern subpopulations in the center of the protected areas are now stable, western and northeastern subpopulations along the borders of the protected areas continue to decline—highlighting the need for subpopulation-specific conservation action.

“The best way to conserve giraffes and other large mammals is by protecting large areas of intact habitat,” said Dr Lohay. “Community conservation efforts have successfully raised adult survival in other parts of Tanzania. Scaling up these initiatives around the Serengeti could make a critical difference.”

“Our work shows how long-term demographic monitoring can guide conservation priorities in complex ecosystems,” said Prof. Arpat Ozgul, senior author and ecologist at the University of Zurich. “Targeted efforts that improve adult survival in key areas could determine the fate of these isolated subpopulations.”

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Zurich, Wild Nature Institute, Pennsylvania State University, Estación Biológica de Doñana, and the Grumeti Fund’s RISE program.

Bond M.L., Behr D.M., Lee D.E., Strauss M.K.L., Campbell P.E., Cavener D.R., Lohay G.G., Madeli J.M., Paniw M., Ozgul A. (2025). Demographic drivers of population dynamics reveal subpopulation-specific conservation needs for giraffes in the Serengeti Ecosystem. Journal of Wildlife Management. DOI: 10.1002/jwmg.70037

One of Wild Nature Institute’s key activities in our Celebrating Africa’s Giants education program is planting trees. Over the past few years, we have established tree nurseries at two schools in communities next to Tarangire and Lake Manyara national parks, places where we have been doing giraffe conservation research for 14 years. Students collect native seeds from the bush and plant them in the nurseries, nurturing them from seedlings to saplings. Some saplings are planted around school grounds and others are donated to the community, fostering good will with community members while improving habitat for giraffes and other African giants. We have thousands of seedlings currently growing, and have distributed 18,000 saplings to the community since we started this activity!

One of the schools is Losirwa Primary School. Losirwa community recently planted 10,000 of our trees near Lake Manyara, restoring and improving habitat for wildlife and benefiting people, too. The trees are whitethorn (Senegalia polyacantha) and umbrella acacia (Vachellia tortilis).

We are only able to do this thanks to funding from our amazing donors who support our Celebrating Africa’s Giants education program - with a special shout-out to the Anne Innis Dagg Foundation for the tree nursery project.