3 rare giraffes electrocuted to death in a freak accident by low-hanging power lines in Kenya
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Three rare giraffes were electrocuted to death over the weekend after walking into low-hanging power lines in a conservation area in western Kenya, authorities said.
The animals, who were part of the severely endangered Rothschild’s giraffe population, were killed in Soysambu Conservancy, a large wildlife area in Nakuru County, about 80 miles northwest of Nairobi.
The Kenya Power and Lighting Company, which operates most of the electricity systems in the country, confirmed the deaths Sunday and vowed to audit the “entire infrastructure within the Conservancy” to prevent another “unfortunate incident.”
“We regret this incident because we recognize that wildlife forms an integral part of our natural and cultural psyche and, we appreciate the feedback shared by various stakeholders on this matter,” the company’s managing director and CEO, Bernard Ngugi, said in a statement.
A preliminary investigation found that the height of electricity poles crossing the Soysambu area are too low, below the height of a typical giraffe, the Kenya Wildlife Services said in a news release.
The group Climate Change Kenya warned that increasing the height of power lines would not solve the problem but create another one, potentially killing birds as they fly through the area.
“We demand that the wildlife corridor’s remain uninterrupted across all our wildlife habits in Kenya and a total environmental audit be done,” the organization said in a statement Tuesday.
There are more than 28,000 giraffes living across the country, but only about 600 of them are from the Rothchild’s subspecies, according to the Kenya Wildlife Services. Read more from Daily News
