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Giraffes Could Soon Be Officially Considered An Endangered Species

Marianne Eloise

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| Last updated 

Giraffes Could Soon Be Officially Considered An Endangered Species

Featured Image Credit: Unsplash

Remember giraffes? Beautiful, tall, long giraffes that we got taught about at school and just thought would always be there? Well, sadly, it's likely that might not be the case for too much longer.

On Thursday, the US Fish and Wildlife Service took a huge step towards protecting giraffes under the Endangered Species Act, saying that their official protection by the law might be warranted.

Conservation groups have petitioned hard for this inclusion after the number of giraffes has fallen drastically across the globe.

Giraffes inhabit many countries across Africa, but their population has been steadily decreasing, and they are now considered "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

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In 2016, just over 97,000 giraffes were in the wild, which means their population has suffered a decline of 36 to 40 per cent since 1985, which is huge.

Unsplash - Giraffes
Unsplash - Giraffes

The giraffe's protection has been hard fought for for two years by The Centre for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defence Council, Humane Society of the United States/Humane Society International and International Fund for Animal Welfare, whose efforts began with a petition to the agency in April 2017.

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"The service finds that the petition to list the giraffe presented substantial information on potential threats associated with development, agriculture and mining," the US Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Unsplash
Unsplash

Three of these organisations, taking their plan very seriously, filed a lawsuit in December to prod the US Fish and Wildlife Service to make a decision after it passed its stated 90-day review period to consider the petition.

The decision on Thursday means that the US Fish and Wildlife Service will conduct its own review, which can take up to 12 months, to assess whether giraffes merit inclusion on the list.

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In 2017, the conservation groups' petition said that the main threats to giraffes were legal and illegal hunting, as well as loss of habitat because of human encroachment.

Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Centre for Biological Diversity, said: "We love these animals, and they've been undergoing a silent extinction without the public being aware of it".

Unsplash
Unsplash

Adam Peyman, programmes and operations manager at Humane Society International, said that "if giraffes are ultimately protected by the Endangered Species Act, those wishing to import giraffes or their parts "would need to meet a much higher bar, which is that this product would somehow be contributing to the conservation of the species".

Marianne Eloise
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