Endangered giraffe rescued from flooded island in Kenya

Conservationists use makeshift raft to get stranded animal to safety

An endangered giraffe was rescued from a flooded island in Kenya with the use of a makeshift raft.

Lbarnoti, a Rothschild giraffe, was ferried to safety across the crocodile-infested waters of Lake Baringo by conservationists.

He was the third giraffe rescued from Longicharo Island, a peninsula flooded because of heavy rains.

The male was loaded on to the barge, created out of steel and empty drums, and carried about 1.5 kilometres down the river to Roku Conservancy.

He stood calmly during the short journey, ambling off once he reached the other side to join two other giraffes, Asiwa and Pasaka, which were rescued in December.

Rescuers vowed to save the remaining six on the island, including one of Lbarnoti's offspring, Noelle, born in December to mother Nkarikoni.

"We must finish these rescues as quickly as possible," Susan Myers, founder and chief executive of Save Giraffes Now, told the Daily Mail in the UK.

The group teamed with members of the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Northern Rangelands Trust to co-ordinate the mission.

“We're thankful Noelle is healthy, but we must keep her safe until she is big enough and we can move her to safety.”

The giraffes were reintroduced to Longicharo Island in 2011, with the location chosen partly in the hope they would be protected from poaching.

The Rothschild’s giraffe, a subspecies of the Northern giraffe, was named after London zoologist Lionel Water Rothschild, who first described the subspecies in his scientific study in the early 1900s.

Rothschilds can be easily identified by their markings, which stop half way down their legs.

Once found in abundant numbers in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, they are now found in small populations in western Kenya and northern Uganda.

There are estimated to be less than 2,500 of these animals in the wild.