http://www.wcvb.com/article/gi...n-watch-list/8478097

Giraffes, rarer than elephants, put on extinction watch list

Updated: 6:16 AM EST Dec 8, 2016

Associated Press

WASHINGTON —
The giraffe, the tallest land animal, is now at risk of extinction, biologists say.

Because the giraffe population has shrunk nearly 40 percent in just 30 years, scientists put it on the official watch list of threatened and endangered species worldwide, calling it "vulnerable." That's two steps up the danger ladder from its previous designation of being a species of least concern. In 1985, there were between 151,000 and 163,000 giraffes but in 2015 the number was down to 97,562, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

At a biodiversity meeting Wednesday in Mexico, the IUCN increased the threat level for 35 species and lowered the threat level for seven species on its "Red List" of threatened species, considered by scientists the official list of what animals and plants are in danger of disappearing.

The giraffe is the only mammal whose status changed on the list this year. Scientists blame habitat loss.

While everyone worries about elephants, Earth has four times as many pachyderms as giraffes, said Julian Fennessy and Noelle Kumpel, co-chairs of the specialty group of biologists that put the giraffe on the IUCN Red List. They both called what's happening to giraffes a "silent extinction."

"Everyone assumes giraffes are everywhere," said Fennessy, co-director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation.

But they're not, Fennessy said. Until recently, biologists hadn't done a good job assessing giraffes' numbers and where they can be found, and they have been lumped into one broad species instead of nine separate subspecies.

"There's a strong tendency to think that familiar species (such as giraffes, chimps, etc.) must be OK because they are familiar and we see them in zoos," said Duke University conservation biologist Stuart Pimm, who wasn't part of the work and has criticized the IUCN for not putting enough species on the threat list. "This is dangerous."

Fennessy blamed shrinking living space as the main culprit in the declining giraffe population, worsened by poaching and disease. People are moving into giraffe areas especially in central and eastern Africa. Giraffe numbers are plunging most in central and eastern Africa and are being offset by increases in southern Africa, he said.

This has fragmented giraffe populations, making them shrink in size with wild giraffes gone from seven countries - Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Guinea, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria and Senegal, said Kumpel of the Zoological Society of London.

The IUCN says 860 plant and animal species are extinct, and another 68 are extinct in the wild. Nearly 13,000 are endangered or critically endangered. The next level is vulnerable, where giraffes were placed, followed by near threatened and least concerned.

The status of two snake species worsened. The ornate ground snake, which lives on the tiny island of Saint Lucia, deteriorated from endangered to critically endangered. The Lacepede's ground snake of Martinique, which was already critically endangered, is now considered possibly extinct, pending confirmation, as is the trondo mainty, a river fish in Madagascar.

But there is also good news for some species. The Victoria stonebasher, a freshwater fish in Africa, went from being considered endangered to least concerned with a stable population. And an African plant, the acmadenia candida, which was declared extinct, has been rediscovered and is now considered endangered. Another freshwater fish, ptychochromoides itasy, which hadn't been seen since the 1960s, has been rediscovered in small numbers in Africa's Sakay River and is now considered critically endangered.

Look out for giraffe to be on the next list of banned hunting trophies. Then it will be zebra, warthog, hippo, crocodile. . . . . . . .It will never end with these people as they will keep presenting the picture that each and every animal has decreased by a large percentage over the past number of years and blah, blah, blah.

Not all that well written, as there are multiple species of giraffe.

I don't think anyone can argue habitat loss.

I was wondering if the headline just had bad punctuation and was referring to a single species of giraffe.

The Northern (Rothschild's) and Reticulated are pretty rare, but the Southern and Masai are fairly common with very sustainable numbers. We are not losing a lot from disease and predation so not sure where the crisis is other than poaching. Up north however, they are routinely shot for food.

In regards to habitat loss, that's again not a southern Africa issue.

Article refers to nine separate subspecies.

A majority of the Thornicroft's giraffe occur outside of the South Luangwa National Park and are protected by private unfenced hunting reserves such as Munyamadzi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF006Yt9XLo


Al Jazeera news clip on the giraffe listing.

Don't you guys know...EVERYTHING is endangered. Just watch any wildlife doco.

Next is the mosquito...

quote:

Originally posted by AFRICAN LEADWOOD:
Next is the mosquito...

Now that can't happen soon enough.

More mosquitoes would help check habitat loss

It is too bad that such a serious issue has become so politicized. Bloody leftist radical freaks. It has become hard to distinguish between a true crisis and just another anti-hunting load of rubbish. THAT is a sad state of affairs.

i knew i should have shot the one i was offer to shoot on my last trip to Africa. the PH i was with told me it was a old bull going around pushing down road signs. they wanted to get rid of it. but i didn't have any where to put such a huge trophy. so i let someone else have it. oh well live and learn.
lee

I personally believe you can always revert to habitat loss - that's what will get everything in the end, including us.