We had a wonderful breeding season with the Giraffe regardless of the winter black frost here at Pamuzinda Safari Park. Nature somehow has a way of balancing things out and our numbers are once again growing. The devastating weather phenomenon has horrendous effects on the foliage. Naturally, a loss in foliage, especially tree leaves, causes a desperate situation for browsers. The worst affected is the most popular, the elegant giraffe.

Some years ago an unseasonal black frost at Pamuzinda stripped the trees of their higher foliage. This caused considerable problems for these enigmatic animals. I guess they cannot swallow “uphill” so with a leaf shortage they can’t just switch to eating grass.

Here one of last season’s young ones is trying to figure out if his problem is that his legs are too long or his neck is too short.

How Black Frost Affects Girrafe

Girrafe, are part of a group of animals called herbivous. Specifically, these graceful creatures are browsers, not like Chrome or Mozilla Firefox but animal browsers. Animal browsers are herbivores that eat mainly leaves and twigs of trees and shrubs.

Black frost is a phenomenon that destroys the parts of plants that browser like giraffes eat. This overnight weather event completely decimates the giraffes’ food source. Without food, the animals begin to starve and without intervention, they go on to die.

Other browsers affected by the black frost at Pamuzinda

Guests who have been on a Pamuzinda game activity will testify that the park has a healthy population of browsers. Whether the activity is a game drive, horse ride or game walk you are likely to meet a lot of browsers. Top of the list of browsers at Pamuzinda are the Kudu and Eland. Other popular browsers not in our safari park include black rhinos, waterbuck, grey duiker, steenbok and bushbuck.

See you on your next safari, remember to book in advance to avoid disappointment!