White Giraffe Spotted in Tanzania

White lions, white elephants and now a white giraffe. Man has long been fascinated with nature's quirks, and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) researcher Charles Foley has finally achieved his goal of finding a white giraffe.Since hearing tales of the peculiar beast in 1993, Foley has been looking for a white giraffe in Tanzania's Tarangire National Park.

"Despite intensive searching, I never saw the giraffe. And by 1994, the sightings stopped coming in, so I assumed it had died, either at the hand of man or beast." During his long-term research on the park's savanna elephant populations, he kept his eye open for a telltale flash of white.

Now his persistence has been rewarded, and Newswise reports that he finally spotted the giraffe during an aerial survey of the park's sub-population of elephants. "I looked...blinked...looked again...and it was still there." After searching for so long, Foley was not content with just a quick glimpse.

He asked pilot David Moyer,  fellow WCS researcher, to make another pass over the area. Travelling at 100km/hr, they flew just over he treetops, with Foley pointing his camera out of the window.

Twelve years of searching paid off when he was able to snap a photo of the unusual herbivore. "The resulting photo reflects a slight juggling of the camera, yet the proof is there to see - a mostly white giraffe with small dark blotches on its body. Only the bottom half of its legs were the more traditional brown colour."

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