Pretoria - Humans were responsible for reducing two-year-old Driepoot's quality of life, and it should be up to humans to improve and give her a better quality of life without further delay.
It was with this spirit in mind that the Southern Africa Animal Cancer Association called on the public and sponsors to come on board to help donate towards the first fitting of a prosthetic leg for Driepoot, a baby giraffe at the Thulo Eco Reserve at Carousel Casino.
Munnik Marais, founder and chief executive of the Southern Africa Animal Cancer Association, said last year, during a dinner function, he heard about Driepoot losing part of her right leg due to poaching.
He said, following that, the organisation decided to adopt Driepoot but also looked to get her a prosthetic leg to help improve her quality of life.
As it was, the giraffe was reportedly battling as she was limping, experiencing problems with her hip and struggling with kneeling down to drink water.
“We want to try to give her as normal a life as possible because, as it stands, she is in a lot of pain all the time. She's a survivor. She's a fighter, and she wants to live,” said Marais.
“Many people say why don’t we simply put her down, but for us, it's more than that. This is part of our heritage. It's the first time in Africa that we attempt to put a prosthetic leg on a giraffe, and we know with it, she will be able to at least eat normally,” he said.
So far, the organisation managed to raise funds for a prosthetic leg to the tune of R25 000. However, much more funds are required for the entire project to keep going.
According to Marais, even though sponsors such as the Carousel Casino and private businesses donated funds, the project required more help.
“They informed us that we had to create a 3m high camp, move her from the wild, and for her to be transported there, all of which cost much more money.”
“We’re a very small organisation and don't readily have millions lying around. At this stage, we estimated that we're looking at costs of R15 000 for the camp, R15 000 for the netting, the vet wants R15 000, so all these costs keep increasing,” he said.
In phase four, Marais said the team had to tame Driepoot to be able to get her to trust the rangers and enable them to clean the prosthetic leg on a weekly basis.
He said that for the team, the most important part was to give the baby giraffe a new way to cope but at the same time raise awareness about the long-term effects of poaching on the country's wildlife.
“We're looking at raising as much as R50 000 so that we don’t have to stop the process every time we run out of funds.
“Even a donation as little as R50 or R100 will go a long way to helping us to help her,” he said.
Pretoria News