Driven out by decades of conflict, native giraffes make a return to Angola

Angolan giraffes arrive from Namibia at Iona national park. They travelled more than 1,300km before their successful release in Angola this week. Photograph: Casey Crafford/African Parks

After an epic 36-hour journey, the first native giraffes to be returned to an Angolan national park arrived from Namibia this week, in what many hope to be the first of multiple translocations to return the animals to their historical homeland.

The giraffes, seven males and seven females, travelled more than 800 miles (1,300km) from a private game farm near Otjiwarongo in the Otjozondjupa region of central Namibia to Iona national park in the south-west corner of Angola.