Giraffe Centre

This guide to the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi opens in 1974 with Jock Leslie-Melville holding a trembling baby giraffe, roped from a ranch near Eldoret that the government had just bought out from under Kenya's last wild Rothschild's giraffes. It follows Jock and his wife Betty, an American who married into an old settler family, as they turn their suburban home into a breeding station for a population down to a final, fragile handful. You'll hear how a second calf named Marlon joined Daisy, and how the couple formalized their effort in 1979 before opening this centre. Watch for warthogs trotting near the forest edge beyond the feeding platform.