Earth’s last known white giraffe has a new protector.
The rare mammal has been fitted with a Global Positioning System tracking device in an effort to protect it from poachers.
The GPS unit was attached to the nameless male’s horn on Nov. 8 at Kenya’s Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy. The decision to do so was prompted by the killing of the two other white giraffes known to exist — a female and her calf — by poachers in March.
The tracker will give hourly updates on the male’s location, allowing rangers to monitor his daily movements and better protect him.
The giraffe’s unique albino color is caused by leucism, a rare genetic trait that makes them easy to spot by poachers.
While the final white giraffe is in danger of being killed because of his standout genetics, he is at least currently lucky in terms of being able to find food.
“The giraffe’s grazing range has been blessed with good rains in the recent past and the abundant vegetation bodes well for the future of the white male,” said Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy’s manager Ahmed Noor in a press release.
In addition to the white male giraffe, the conservancy is home to the “critically endangered” hirola antelope — which is estimated to only have 450 surviving members in the wild — as well as the endangered reticulated giraffe, warthog, lesser kudu, ostrich and “a unique herd of largely maneless plains zebra.”
These giraffes aren’t the only white animals that have been targeted by hunters: First Nations in Canada recently mourned the loss of a rare white “spirit moose” after poachers illegally shot and discarded the bodies of two females — one a sacred white cow — in Timmins, Ontario.
