The somber tale of the fallen giants

The skin scrapings were taken to a laboratory where they tested negative for suspected mites and a complete cell count from the four giraffes blood samples indicated normal limits. However, protozoa piroplasm was observed on the four blood smears. While we require more samples to make conclusive inferences and potentially disentangle the possible relations between this outbreak and species age classes, sex and spatial distribution of this parasite, we also considered poor nutrition as a result of a prolonged drought that limits resources and increases browsing pressure on few forages left.

It has been suggested that plants respond to browsing by producing tannin that limits over browsing. Tannin is toxic and under normal circumstances, animals would avoid ingestion of high toxins by not browsing on such plants until the tannin levels return to normal. Unfortunately, limited forage results in re-browsing and ingestion of high toxins, that could result in the mortality of individuals with weak physiological tolerance. This case has been observed in South Africa where the deaths of Kudu were linked to the increasing tannin content of their browse.