Despite being iconically African, the giraffe remains largely understudied in the wild—unlike most of the continent’s other large megafauna. In part, this is because giraffes were not heavily hunted until recently: they don’t produce tusks or horns that are coveted as trophies or medicine and they are not an aggressive species. Sadly, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) now estimates that giraffe numbers have plummeted across Africa by 40 percent in the last decade to less than 80,000 individuals due to increasing habitat fragmentation and a surge in bushmeat poaching driven by human population growth, economics, and war. Despite this precipitous decline, giraffes are not high on the conservation agenda of most countries, research groups, or NGOs.
