South African party put a dead giraffe's head in a sinkhole. The absurd move backfired badly

A South African political party's bizarre move to draw attention to the country's potholes backfired badly when animal rescue teams ended up getting involved in the stunt. The Democratic Alliance (DA) posted a video showing a giraffe inside a pothole near Johannesburg, with the caption, "A sinkhole so deep a giraffe can stand in it." It wanted to highlight the problematic roads in the country. However, the party's shadow member for roads and logistics, Evert Du Plessis, did not expect things to take such a dramatic turn.

Seeing the giraffe inside the sinkhole triggered concerns for the animal's safety, as the stunt pulled by the party's shadow member for roads and logistics, Evert Du Plessis, failed. People started calling the local Owl Rescue Centre about the giraffe in a hole. Rescuers rushed to the spot in Mogale City but were shocked to learn that it wasn't a live giraffe but a big stuffed head of a dead animal.

Giraffe in a hole

They said that they realised it must be a prank after seeing the photo. "Turns out, it was. The local branch of the DA thought sticking a stuffed giraffe head into a hole was a clever way to draw attention," angry workers wrote in a social media post.

Rescuers demand money for fuel

The rescuers who went to help the supposed giraffe had to abandon another mission. They are demanding the DA make a donation to cover their fuel costs. "When an animal's life might be on the line, we don't wait around; we respond. What if it had been real?" they fumed in the post. They also slammed the party for using "an actual dead animal to score political points", calling it "unethical and deeply disrespectful to our wildlife and biodiversity."

Du Plessis's initial post showed the pothole, saying that people passing by thought it was an actual giraffe. He added that they had visited the site in February last year and nothing has been done about the pothole.