Giraffe up. The calf emerges head and front legs first, having broken through the fetal membranes, and falls to the ground, severing the umbilical cord. The mother then grooms the newborn and helps it stand up. A newborn giraffe is tall. Within a few hours of birth, the calf can run around and is almost indistinguishable from a one-week-old. However, for the first 1–3 weeks, it spends most of its time hiding; its coat pattern providing camouflage. The ossicones, which have lain flat while it was in the womb, become erect within a few days. Mothers with calves will gather in
Giraffe Centre Giraffe Centre The Giraffe Center is located in Lang'ata, approximately from the centre of Nairobi, Kenya. It was established in order to protect the endangered giraffe, that is found only in the grasslands of East Africa. In 1979, the Giraffe Center, a nature sanctuary for visiting and including wildlife conservation education for urban school children, was started by Jock Leslie Melville, the Kenyan grandson of a Scottish Earl, when he and his wife Betty captured two baby giraffe to start a programme of breeding giraffe on their Langata property, site of the present Centre. Since then the programme has had