The Savanna’s Vanishing Towers

It isn’t polite to stare, but it is almost involuntary when you’re up close to the giraffe. With their long faces, longer necks, dark spots, and stilts-for-legs, you can’t help but stare at them. Then you see their foot-long tongues and all you want to do is look away.

We had just entered the Giraffe Center (Centre for our friends across the pond). Located in Nairobi, the Center is the creation of the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (A.F.E.W. Kenya), a Kenyan-non profit organization that seeks to educate school children and youth on their country’s wildlife and environment. The organization was begun in 1979 by the late Jock Leslie-Melville and his wife, Betty Leslie-Melville. The Giraffe Center was begun after they discovered that the Rothschild Giraffe, a subspecies of giraffe found in East Africa, had experienced a population decline, leaving only 130 individuals in Kenya (Giraffe Centre).

Unfortunately, this decline isn’t only in Kenya or with this subspecies, but it has been observed across Africa. According to estimates conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), giraffe populations have declined from an estimated 151,702-163,452 giraffes in 1985 to just 97,562 giraffes in 2016 (Muller et al. 2018).

Let me add a quick ray of sunshine in this. These population declines are not being seen across all of Africa. There are parts of Africa where giraffe populations are in fact growing. In the nation of South Africa, the giraffe population has grown from an estimated 8,000 at the beginning of the 21^st century, to an estimated 21,000-27,000 in 2018 (Deacon and Tutchings 2018). Similarly, in Niger, the giraffe population has increased from 49 individuals in 1996 to 220 individuals in 2009 (Gasparova et al. 2020, Suraud et al. 2012).

There are four main categories of threats to giraffes:

• Habitat loss, often through deforestation, land use conversion, expansion of agriculture and human population growth (Muller et al. 2018).
• Civil unrest, including ethnic violence, rebel militias, paramilitary and military operations (Muller et al. 2018).
• Illegal hunting, or poaching (Muller et al. 2018).
• Ecological changes, through mining activity, habitat conversion to agriculture and climate-induced processes (Muller et al. 2018).

Depending on the nation, most of these threats can be present. For instance, in the south African nation of Angola, after 31 years of conflict there has been much harm done to the people and the wildlife. National parks were occupied by local people from the surrounding areas. People began to hunt wildlife for food. Illegal hunting reached alarming proportions, leading to severe overexploitation of the wildlife. The overexploitation of resources and loss of habitat are also major threats to wildlife. In 2013, the nation’s giraffe populations were estimated at only 20 individuals. Since then, Angola has made efforts to revive its parks (Marais et al. 2013).

In the east African nation of Ethiopia, giraffes have experienced declines from loss of habitat through deforestation and conversion to farmland. They have also experienced increased hunting during periods of unrest. In this part of Africa, giraffe are hunted by tribesmen, who hunt the giraffe for their meat and tail, which is used to make strings for traditional necklaces. There are now less than 200 individuals in Ethiopia (Abate and Abate 2017).

In the west African nation of Niger, giraffe suffer from habitat loss, due to overgrazing and deforestation. This is spurred on by Niger’s population growth. The large population growth has led to an increase in development, removing even more habitat and posing more threats due to roads. The large numbers of domestic ruminants, like cattle, goats and sheep, also posses the danger of diseases transmitting from them to the wild ruminants, like giraffes. As elsewhere, illegal hunting and poaching have also played a part in giraffe declines. In 1996, there were only 49 individuals remaining (Gasparova et al. 2020).

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that about 70 percent of the giraffe’s present range occurs outside of government-managed protected areas (O’Conner et al. 2019). This means that most populations of giraffes live on community lands, where they share space with people and their livestock (Dasgupta), further increasing the chances of human-wildlife conflict and transmission of diseases with livestock.

There are cases of giraffes being able to thrive on privately owned land. In the mid-20^th century, an idea came about that wildlife ranching could provide as much of a profit as domestic animal ranching. By the 1980s, there were about 250 privately owned giraffes in South Africa. In 2016, an estimated 9,642 giraffes were on privately owned game farms or ranches, making up approximately half of the nation’s giraffe population (Deacon and Tutchings 2018).

Giraffe are also being brought back into parts of their former range. In 2018, eight giraffe were successfully translocated to the Gadabedji Biosphere Reserve in eastern Niger, making them the first satellite population in the nation (Gasparova et al. 2020).

There is more hope for the giraffe. On August 22, 2019, the 18^th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) agreed to list the giraffe under Appendix II of CITES (Mongabay). Animals on this list are not necessarily now threatened with extinction but could become so unless their trade is closely controlled (CITES). Having the giraffe listed could help tighten the monitoring and regulation of the trade in giraffes and their body parts, including bones, hides and meat (Mongabay).

We took the opportunity to feed these giants with small food pellets, which they thoroughly enjoyed. We simply had to stick our hand out with the food pellet in it. The giraffes would then lower their head down and pluck it out of your grasp, sometimes using their long tongues. After everyone took their turn to feed the giraffe’s at ground level, we moved to an elevated viewing platform that brought us up to head level with these giants. Here, we fed them some more and took pictures with them. Unfortunately, we had to leave, for we had one more stop to make in the city.

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Abate, Debu and Tadesse Abate. (2017). “Factors Affecting the Survival of Giraffe in Ethiopia.” Advances in Life Science and Technology 55: 8-12

Dasgupta, Shreya. “New maps show where giraffes live—mostly outside protected areas.” Mongabay 22 October 2019 < https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/new-maps-show-where-giraffes-live-mostly-outside-protected-areas/?n3wsletter&utm_source=Mongabay+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c525bfabb7-Newsletter_2019_10_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_940652e1f4-c525bfabb7-77158845> Accessed 16 July 2020

Deacon, Francois and Andy Tutchings. (2018) “The South African giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa: a conservation success story.” Oryx http://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605317001612

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Marais, A.J., Fennessy, S. & Fennessy, J. 2013. Country Profile: A rapid assessment of the giraffe conservation status in the Republic of Angola. Giraffe Conservation Foundation, Windhoek, Namibia

Muller, Z., Bercovitch, F., Brand, R., Brown, D., Brown, M., Bolger, D., Carter, K., Deacon, F., Doherty, J.B., Fennessy, J., Fennessy, S., Hussein, A.A., Lee, D., Marais, A., Strauss, M., Tutchings, A. & Wube, T. 2018. Giraffa camelopardalis (amended version of 2016 assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T9194A136266699. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T9194A136266699.en. Downloaded on 26 May 2020.

O’connor, D., Stacy‐Dawes, J., Muneza, A., Fennessy, J., Gobush, K., Chase, M. J., … Mueller, T. (2019). Updated geographic range maps for giraffe, Giraffa spp., throughout sub‐Saharan Africa, and implications of changing distributions for conservation. Mammal Review, 49(4), 285-299. doi:10.1111/mam.12165

Suraud, J.P., J. Fennessy, E. Bonnaud, A.M. Issa, H. Fritz and J.M. Gaillard (2012). Higher than expected growth rate of the Endangered West African giraffe Giraffa Camelopardalis peralta: a successful human-wildlife cohabitation. Oryx (46): pp 577-583 doi:10.1017/S0030605311000639

“The CITES Appendices.” Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora” < https://cites.org/eng/app/index.php> Accessed 14 July 2020