Last month in Kenya, a giraffe found herself in a precarious position. While grazing with her family, she unwittingly stepped into a paint can, trapping her hoof inside.
The giraffe struggled to walk, green paint splashing up her ankle.
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT) received a report about the giraffe, who was hobbling around, and sent a vet team to check it out. When they saw the poor animal’s situation, the team knew they had to act quickly.
The immediate threat was that the can could cut into the giraffe’s leg, opening her up to infection. Gradually, things would get worse.
Adult giraffes have hooves as big as “dinner plates,” according to Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. As they roam the savannah, the ground acts as a natural nail file, keeping their hooves healthy. Beyond infection, a giraffe hoof without regular filing would be immensely painful.
“In time, [the can] would have affected her mobility,” Sean Michael, director of communications at SWT, told The Dodo. “To the point that she would have struggled to access basic necessities like food and water, and would have made her a very easy target for predators.”
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
The SWT team, working with Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), swiftly steered the giraffe away from her family so they could remove the can safely.
“Giraffes have a unique physiology that makes full anesthesia extremely risky,” Michael said. “Instead, they are sedated only very briefly … then immediately revived for treatment.”
Several members of the vet team soothed the giraffe and prevented her from kicking and hurting herself as others took a tiny saw to the can.
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
After the paint can came off, the vet team slathered medication on the giraffe’s ankle to make sure nothing would get infected later on. The removal happened quickly, and the relief the giraffe felt was apparent right away.
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
Without missing a beat, the giraffe stood and ran back to her family, who waited nearby.
“She seemed very relieved to be free,” SWT wrote in a Facebook post about the ordeal. Michael is glad the rescue mission went off without a hitch.
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
It’s unclear how or why the paint can ended up in a spot where animals live and roam, but SWT sees the incident as a reminder that humans need to take more responsibility when it comes to litter.
As they wrote on Facebook: “Discarded without care, even the most mundane object can become lethal.”
If you want to donate to Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, you can do so via their website.
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