So, what kind of money does it take to move a 1,800-2,600 lbs giraffe? It will depend on the distance of the journey. A compilation of news articles can give us a brief estimate, pulling out figures from zoo financial documents or media reports.

Land

Although land cost estimates for giraffes is lacking in literature and public media, an alternative that can provide similar estimates is the transportation of elephants. From a Toronto Star article deemed “How Do you Move an Elephant?”, the trip of shipping elephants from the Toronto Zoo to California costed about $300,000. A shorter trip, from Oklahoma to Seattle, cost approximately $111,000 for shipping two Asian elephants (as stated in the article “Zoo Not Profiting from Elephants’ Pricey Transfer”). Giving a rough estimate of anywhere between $100,000-300,00 for road trips.

Sea

By sea, only one news article recently published proposed the figure of $100,000 US for transporting a pair of giraffes from South Africa to Thailand (“Importing Rare Animals Not Easy: Saigon Zoo” 2017). The previous portion of their journey was by air, but they seemed to address that the air travel was actually cheaper than the freight costs. The reason for this may just be the shear distance traveled by each mode of transportation, with the sea trip taking much longer than that of the initial flight.

Air

Last, but certainly not least, the price of air fare for our tall, furry friends, can range from anywhere between $45,00-$250,000 (given by the articles (“Importing Rare Animals Not Easy: Saigon Zoo” 2017; Kaggere et al. 2017). From the article stated prior with regards to sea costs, the airplane flight for the two giraffes shipped from South Africa to Thailand came up to $45,000. For a larger distance, of shipping two giraffes in exchange for two elephants flying from Bannerghatta National Park to Cypress Zoo, the cost came up to a whopping $250,000.