Giraffes and Okapi

The okapi, or forest giraffe (Okapia johnstoni), did not become known to European scientists until 1900, when a native pygmy hunter showed a striped-legged skin of this species to a British zoologist in what was then the Congo in central Africa. The discovery of this unusual large animal caused a quite a sensation among European naturalists and the public. As a result, many museums and zoological gardens mounted expeditions to secure living or dead specimens of this novel, but rare animal. Wealthy big-game hunters also organized expeditions to acquire trophy heads of the "newly discovered" okapi.

By today's standards, it seems rather barbaric for scientists and hunters to have mounted those sorts of campaigns, which could only have further endangered an already rare species. However, attitudes and morality were different in late-Victorian times, when the notions of conservation and ecology were only beginning to make faint impressions on scientists, and on the broader public.

The okapi has a much shorter neck and legs than the giraffe, and the two horns of the males are pointed and uncovered by skin at their tips (female okapis do not have horns). The okapi has a fairly uniform-chestnut pelage, but distinctive, horizontal stripes on its legs. The largest okapis stand about 79 in (2 m) tall, and weigh 551 lb (250 kg).

From the first discovery of the okapi, great efforts were made to capture live specimens and transport them to European or American zoos for display and study. For many years, these efforts were quite unsuccessful. Although methods were developed for the safe capture of wild okapis (using pits dug across the paths these animals habitually use), it proved extremely difficult to transport them to the far away zoos.

Today, because of more efficient hunting by local people (some of whom have modern weapons), coupled with extensive loss of their rainforest habitat, the okapi is an even more rare animal than it was when Europeans first discovered it. Okapis will breed in zoos, although successes in this regard are sporadic. The survival of this unusual animal will certainly require the preservation of a large area of its natural habitat of old-growth, tropical rainforest in central Africa.