TBT: Albino Giraffes Poached

I’ve had animals on the brain lately, especially dogs.  Perhaps it’s my girlfriend’s sweet German shepherd puppy, or my parents’ photogenic rat terrier; regardless, I realize I am becoming a softy for critters.

Not just the furry, charismatic ones, either:  I’m considering adding a small frog garden to my existing flower beds, as I have a number of toads and frogs that take up residence in my beds and planters already.  Giving them a murky little pond to splash about in would be fun, and might help cut down on some bugs in the yard.

So it is that I’m looking back to this horrible story from March 2020, about the poaching of two rare albino giraffes in Kenya.  In the original piece, I make quite a few wild speculations about the nature of the poachers, even implicating the 50,000 Chinese immigrants to the country.

Given that The Virus originated, most likely, in a Wuhan virology lab—suggesting the Chinese were working on some kind of horrible biological weapon—I’d say mistrust in China’s motives is justified.  It’s also a very weird culture, as the wet markets proved.  The Chinese long believed rhinoceros horn to be an aphrodisiac; how far-fetched would it be to think they would believe something similar about the flesh of an albino giraffe?

For that matter, Africa is still a land filled with many folk beliefs and superstitions.  Albino humans in Tanzania, for example, are the targets of witch doctors, who harvest albinos’ body parts for use in their dark magicGavin McInnes frequently mentions the belief among some African tribes that bald men’s heads are filled with gold.  And there is the horrific practice of AIDS sufferers raping virgins—especially very young children—in the belief that doing so will cure their affliction.

These are terrible things—far more wicked and evil than the murder of two albino giraffes.  But how we treat God’s Creation, even in its lower orders, is a reflection of how we treat one another.  Animal mutilation and murder is a key sign of a future serial killer or sociopath.

With that depressing preamble, here is 24 March 2020’s “Albino Giraffes Poached“:

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Albino Giraffes Poached

As if dancing plagues and Chinese viruses weren’t enough, albino giraffes are getting poached.

From the BBC:

Two extremely rare white giraffes have been killed by poachers in north-eastern Kenya, conservationists say.

Rangers had found the carcasses of the female and her calf in a village in north-eastern Kenya’s Garissa County.

A third white giraffe is still alive. It is thought to be the only remaining one in the world, the conservationists added.

Their white appearance is due to a rare condition called leucism, which causes skin cells to have no pigmentation.

Apparently, no one knows why these giraffes were killed; the poachers’ “motive is still unclear,” per the BBC.

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