Cillian & Settanta

Cillian and Settanta were born in 2003 and both hail from Fota Wildlife Park near Cork in Ireland. They make up part of the small bachelor herd of giraffes on display at Port Lympne’s African Experience.

These pampered giants have access to an impressive 200 acres of parkland where they are able to forage for food freely and, being in a large and natural environment, they are more inclined to behave in the way that a normal giraffe does. They have access to many different plant species that grow in their amazing surroundings, and have a particular preference for hawthorn – which closely resembles the spiky acacia tree that they would normally feed on in Africa. They share this area with many other mammal species such as black rhino, Grevy's zebra and many antelope species.

When the giraffe house is opened up, Cillian hangs back behind the house with Horace and needs encouragement from the keepers to move out on to the parkland.  Settanta on the other hand, is first out and heads off before everyone else.

They are a steady influence on the group as Sebastian is quite nervous and Karamojo is pushy with the keepers, so Cillian and Settanta are the stablising pair!

The giraffes are still currently going out in the African Experience daily, but if it snows or there is ice, they will stay at the giraffe house; visitors will still be able to see them as they travel past on the safari trucks.

Cillian is quite tall - even for a giraffe - and pale in colour, with a small scar on his upper lip.

Settanta is slightly smaller than Cillian and much darker in colour.  

Both giraffes are big food lovers, with willow leaves being one of their favourite foods. They also enjoy hazel, beech and apple leaves, which they use their long mobile tongues to reach. The colour of their tongue, which spends a lot of its time out in the open air, is black – which prevents it getting sunburnt while they feed!

The bachelor herd are quite comfortable around the trucks and will calmly amble past in search of browse – although sometimes their curiosity gets the better of them and they’ll come for a closer look, much to the delight of our visitors!

While we currently only house hybrid giraffe we are hoping to soon start a breeding programme at Port Lympne for the endangered Rothschild giraffe.  With less than 2500 of this subspecies remaining in the wild, conservation through captive breeding will be an important safety net.