Video footage of two extremely rare white reticulated giraffes that have been found living in eastern Kenya is melting the hearts of wildlife fans around the world.
Conservationists filmed the ghostly looking mother and her adorable calf — who both have the pigmentation-inhibiting genetic condition of leucism — walking together on the Ishaqbini Hirola Conservancy in Garissa County in June.
“They were so close and extremely calm and seemed not disturbed by our presence,” the Hirola Conservation Program, which manages the area, wrote on its blog. The staff had been tipped off by locals about the animals’ location.
“The mother kept pacing back and forth a few yards in front of us while signaling the baby giraffe to hide behind the bushes –- a characteristic of most wildlife mothers in the wild to prevent the predation of their young,” it added.