We’re
exposed to giraffes from the time we’re babies. They’re in our story books,
painted or papered on our toy boxes or nursery walls, on our beloved children’s
programming, and on our shelves in the form of toys. Sometimes those toys come
close to resembling the real thing, other times they’re barely recognizable.
But they’re always familiar to us and always a permanent fixture in our culture
in one way or another, even when we don’t live anywhere near Africa and don’t
get to the zoo too often.
But as
much as they’re in our view from the word go, how many of us ever really take
any time to seriously consider these fantastic and amazing creatures. Here are
some facts about another of Mother Nature’s wonders.
·
Obviously, the most well-known but never less
fascinating fact about giraffes, is simply their size. They’re around 18-20
feet (more than 6 meters) tall at their tallest, and can weigh as much as
3000lbs (1360kgs). That’s a lot of animal.
·
Their legs alone are six feet tall. That means
the majority of us could stroll right under a giraffe’s belly without even
stooping! (Although I wouldn’t recommend trying it!)
·
Their necks are also around 6 feet long.
Interestingly, however, in spite of the fact that their necks are longer than
our bodies, they still have exactly the same number of neck bones that we do.
·
At a casual stroll, a giraffe covers about 15
feet (4.5 meters) with every step. At that rate, it gets along pretty fast.
That’s approximately 10 miles (16 km) per hour! But that’s nothing. At a full
gallop, a giraffe can make 35 miles (56 km) per hour! The average human runs at
about 15 to 18 miles per hour.
·
Go to your kitchen cupboard, grab a dinner plate
and study it real hard. That’s roughly the size of a giraffe’s hoofprint!
·
Because of their enormous height, giraffes have
to take a very awkward and uncomfortable squatting position to drink from the
stream. But two things make this OK. First, they have a set of valves around
the jugular vein that regulate blood flow to prevent the giraffe from getting a
head rush when it stands up again. Second, they only have to go through this
once every few days. They get most of the liquid they need from the plants they
eat, so they only need to drink once in a while.
·
Now let’s talk hearts. BIG hearts. HUGE hearts.
Bigger-than-your-head kind of hearts. A giraffe’s heart averages out at about
24 inches (64 cm) tall and 24lbs (11 kgs) in weight. The human head averages at
about (57 cm) and weigh 11lbs (5 kgs).
It’s no wonder
we’re so enamoured by this fascinating animal. And we ARE enamoured. They’re
everywhere. You can find them in jewelry, jewelry boxes, shirts, pajamas,
hoodies, dishes, novelty pens, scissors and other office supplies, toys and
models of all descriptions and even phone cases and flash drives. Most anything you can think of comes in some
sort of giraffe form. Even fancy soaps.
Yet, for all
this adoration, we still manage to treat them pretty poorly. Experts say at
least a couple of subspecies are in serious danger, to the point of endangered
status, and the giraffe population in general has dramatically declined across
Africa. More than that, even when we try to take care of them, we don’t always
seem to do a bang-up job. It was announced just recently that one giraffe was
killed in ___ when it smacked its head on a bridge while being transported in
the back of a truck.
And of
course we’ve all heard about the zoo in Copenhagen that slaughtered an “excess”
giraffe and fed the meat to the lions … in front of zoo guests!
Then there’s
all the controversy being raised by a new “sport” in which wealthy people fork
out tons of money to participate in a staged hunt for exotic animals in Africa
just to say they did. There are several pictures on the internet of people
sitting proudly next to or even on top of a slaughtered giraffe.
It’s terrible, but the very fact
that all three incidents have drawn such attention and controversy suggests
that there are more people who care about these amazing animals out there and
want to ensure they’re around for a long time, than people who don’t.
I hope.
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