Kenyan tourism has made headlines after a giraffe at the Nairobi National Park gave birth to a set of twins. The Maasai giraffe gave birth to twins in what the park workers termed as a rare spectacle in the history of the national park.
The East African country’s Tourism Cabinet Secretary, Najib Balala, joined the workers and Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) in celebrating the birth and making the announcement on Tuesday, July 19. "One of the Maasai giraffes in Nairobi National Park has given birth to a set of twins. This is an extremely rare occurrence. We welcome the newborns with love," Balala tweeted using the hashtags #ZuruNairobi Park #MagicalKenya.
This feat has been embraced with immense awe considering the rarity of a giraffe giving birth to a set of twins. The twinning rate in giraffes is one in every 280,000, and to explain this phenomenon, experts say there are a whole lot more human twins in the world than there are giraffes in zoos globally. So rare are twin births for giraffes that experts report that out of 8,600 normal births worldwide, there are less than 40 twin births. Thus whenever a giraffe gives birth to twins, it is considered a miraculous occurrence.
The twins’ streak in Kenyan wildlife seems to consistently continue. Earlier in January, Kenya’s Wildlife authorities announced a rare twin birth of elephant calves. Bora, the Kenyan elephant made history at a conservancy in Samburu after giving birth to twins.The birth of the twins was celebrated by the Tourism Cabinet Secretary and zoologists who acknowledged that this was a first in more than a decade. Save the Elephants, a conservation NGO, noted that the occurrence is a rare one since such births make up only one per cent of all elephant deliveries.
Zoologists further explained that twin births are not a norm among elephants since the mother does not have enough milk to cater for the calves. International publication Newsweek spoke to Save the Elephants founder, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who explained that such births can be stressful to the teams that take care of the big mammals. Further, it is also understood that in the long run, either of the twin elephants would end up dying since the mother would not be able to adequately nurse the two jumbos.
With this recent master stroke, the Nairobi National Park in particular and Kenyan Tourism in general has proved to be a world where nature defies itself. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the Nairobi National Park is the only park within a city in the world. The park is endowed with black rhino, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, buffaloes, giraffes, and a diverse birdlife with over 400 species recorded.