Giraffes under siege: The silent crisis of trophy hunting and its threat to survival
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Giraffes under siege: The silent crisis of trophy hunting and its threat to survival
By Don Pinnock 08 Jul 2025
On the savannas of Africa’s vanishing wilderness, the world’s tallest mammal is being quietly driven towards extinction – not by habitat loss alone, but by the insatiable appetite for trophies that turn gentle giants into rugs and flywhisks.
They don’t sneak up on you. They don’t bolt or slink or startle. In fact, when you turn a corner and find one blocking the road, a giraffe tends to just stand there, regarding you with the mild detachment of a royal being.
With legs like stilts and lashes that belong in a makeup tutorial, the giraffe seems to come from another era entirely – some whimsical prehistoric pageant of elegance and oddity.
Despite their bulk, they tread almost noiselessly, their feet cushioned and their steps deliberate, floating through the bushveld like a silent observer. According to surveys, giraffes are the most photographed animals in the Kruger Park, outdoing even the lion in visitor snapshots. Other animals seem to sense their unthreatening nature: zebras and wildebeest often graze in their company.
Hunting such a creature seems bizarre. What could be gained from bagging one of Africa’s friendliest wild animals? For some it’s apparently irresistible.
Last month the Wildlife & Conservation Foundation published new figures that lay bare the stark reality: in 2023 alone nearly 1,800 giraffe trophies were shipped around the world, feeding a global market that has become a little-known but significant threat to the species’ survival.
Professor Fred Bercovitch, a leading giraffe expert and former executive director of Save the Giraffes, issued a stark warning: “We’ve seen a 40% decline in giraffe numbers over the past three decades. If the current rate of decline continues, giraffes will be extinct before long.”
Today, fewer than 100,000 giraffes remain across Africa – a fraction of the estimated 450,000 elephants that share the same landscapes. But while elephants draw global outcry when they’re hunted for ivory, giraffes slip under the radar and they’re being picked off, sometimes bred in captivity solely to be shot and shipped as trophies.
In the early 1900s, giraffes were relentlessly hunted in the Lowveld. They were prized not for meat or ivory, but for their tails – used to swat flies and craft ceremonial regalia – and their hides, which were fashioned into whips and sjamboks. Bones were crushed for manure.
Giraffe numbers are increasing only in national parks and protected reserves – places where trophy hunting is banned.
The present hunt numbers are sobering. According to CITES trade data, the US alone imported more than 1,000 giraffe trophies in 2023, accounting for 60% of the global total. European countries are also deeply in the trade, with imports recorded in the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy, among others. Even as far afield as China, the UAE and Canada, giraffe parts – skins, skulls, bones, even feet and tails – find their way into homes as status symbols.
“People might be shocked to learn that there was even a confiscation of giraffe genitalia listed as a trophy,” the report notes.
For Bercovitch, who spent two decades studying giraffes in the wild, the issue is not simply about the legal hunts – it’s the laundering of illegal kills through the legitimate trade in trophies. Officially, the trophy hunting industry claims that about 300 giraffes are legally shot each year.
But US government data suggests that closer to 400 trophies enter the country annually. “If those figures are correct, that means at least 25% are from illegally killed giraffes,” Bercovitch explains. “Trophy hunting is providing an avenue for the illegal trade.”
The hunting lobby insists that trophy fees fund conservation, protect habitats and support local communities. But Bercovitch dismantles this argument. “If trophy hunting truly helps conservation, you could ban the import of trophies while still allowing controlled hunting that benefits the ecosystem,” he argues. “But where’s the evidence that it does? The data show giraffe numbers are increasing only in national parks and protected reserves – places where trophy hunting is banned.”
Examples abound. In Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, giraffe numbers rose from about 200 to 1,200 in the past two decades. In Etosha National Park in Namibia and in the Kruger Park, populations have stabilised and grown. “There’s no trophy hunting in these places,” Bercovitch says. “It’s the absence of hunting that helps.”
Banning the import of giraffe trophies would signal that the life of a giraffe is worth more alive than as a footstool, a flywhisk or a trophy on the wall.
The claim that trophy hunting fuels local economies and uplifts rural communities also withers under scrutiny. While trophy hunting does generate income, where it ends up is murky at best. “If a million dollars comes in, up to 99% might go to government officials and landowners, with scraps left for the local community,” Bercovitch says. Independent studies suggest as little as 3% of trophy hunting revenue reaches households living near hunting concessions.
As the Wildlife & Conservation Foundation report highlights, the real beneficiaries are not struggling villagers but well-heeled foreign hunters – overwhelmingly white, older men from the US and Europe – and the operators who guide them to a giraffe’s final stand under the African sun. Photos show these hunters grinning beside the sprawled corpses of towering bulls, some bred in fenced enclosures just to be shot at close range.
In an interview, Bercovitch drew a sharp analogy: “When a destitute local person kills an animal for bushmeat to feed their family, they can be thrown in jail. But a wealthy hunter can pay tens of thousands of dollars to shoot the same animal – and take its head home. That’s real colonialism.”
When California banned foie gras imports, the French didn’t say, ‘You’re dictating to us’… Giraffes are no different.
The trophy lobby’s favourite fallback argument – that without hunting, wildernesses will be lost because they are not profitable – has also been discredited. Conservationists point to the vast potential of ecotourism. Unlike trophy hunting, wildlife tourism generates far greater income, creates more jobs and gives communities a reason to protect living animals. Yet the notion persists that some remote areas are “accessible only to hunters”.
“It makes no sense,” Bercovitch says. “If you’re willing to pay to shoot a giraffe in a remote place, why wouldn’t you pay to photograph it alive?”
Countries like the UK have proposed legal bans on importing hunting trophies, drawing predictable outrage from pro-hunting lobbyists who claim such bans to be ‘neocolonialism’.
Bercovitch’s response is blunt: “When California banned foie gras imports, the French didn’t say, ‘You’re dictating to us’. When the world tells Brazil to stop deforestation, it’s not colonialism – it’s protecting a global heritage. Giraffes are no different.”
Historical precedent also offers a grim reminder of what happens when humans hunt species into oblivion. “The dodo, the quagga, Steller’s sea cow – all driven to extinction by humans,” Bercovitch says. “We can’t replace species once they’re gone.”
The Wildlife & Conservation Foundation’s answer is clear: banning the import of giraffe trophies would close a critical loophole for illegal kills. It would also signal that the life of a giraffe – an animal that has roamed Africa for millions of years – is worth more alive than as a footstool, a flywhisk or a trophy on the wall. DM
https://www.dailymaverick.co.z...ds&dm_content=africaTackling a tall story — a myopic focus on trophy hunting harms real giraffe conservation
By Gail Thomson and 23 co-signatories Follow 16 Jul 2025
The gentle giraffe faces multiple threats across Africa. Foremost of these are habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation, poaching and climate change. Notably absent from the list of existential threats is legal trophy hunting.
In response to Daily Maverick’s Don Pinnock, a group of non-hunting conservationists explains how giraffe hunting can have positive outcomes for giraffe conservation.
The media can contribute positively to the conservation of all giraffe and other species by spotlighting issues that need greater public awareness and support. As government budgets for global conservation spending are cut or spent on other sectors, local and international conservation organisations increasingly rely on public donations to keep working.
But when the media spotlight is used to mislead the public regarding the real threats that animals face, it deflects critical awareness and funding away from dealing with them. That would be bad enough.
Yet a recent article by Don Pinnock in Daily Maverick goes one step further, by describing a positive force for conservation as a threat. As conservationists working across Africa, we could not let this attack on conservation stand. Instead, we want to highlight the real state of giraffe using the latest scientific information.
The article in question sought to popularise a report from Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting (CBTH, deceptively rebranded as Wildlife & Conservation Foundation), a UK-based lobby group that does not contribute to giraffe conservation on the ground. Their report — released to coincide with World Giraffe Day on 21 June — was based on the opinion of Dr Fred Bercovitch and referenced 2023 data from the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).
Discovering the real state of giraffe
The State of Giraffe 2025 (SoG25) was also released on World Giraffe Day, spearheaded by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) — the world’s only organisation devoted solely to conserving giraffe across their range through actions on the ground.
This 31-page publication presents the latest giraffe population and distribution statistics using data from more than a thousand independent sources and the national authorities of giraffe range states.
The numbers are broken down according to the newly recognised four giraffe species and their subspecies (note: this new species classification is in the final stage of review by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission’s Giraffe & Okapi Specialist Group).
The data collection methods for this report are presented, and any shortcomings (eg, lack of data due to civil unrest) are provided in the interest of transparency.
Following the IUCN Red List standards, the authors assign a conservation status for each giraffe species. These new assessments provide a much better picture of how each giraffe species is faring in different parts of Africa, which further helps to reveal the real threats posed in each country and the conservation actions that could be taken to address them.
The first graph presented in the SoG25 report, and reproduced below, tells a story that is worth unpacking in light of the claims about trophy hunting threats. Of the four giraffe species, only one has shown a general upward trend over the past 30 years — the southern giraffe.
Reflecting its growth from 31,700 to 68,837 in that time, the SoG25 authors propose that this species should be listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The biggest populations of this species are found in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe — all of which allow giraffe trophy hunting and are the main exporters of giraffe parts on the CITES database.
While the southern giraffe increased, all other giraffe species — which occur in countries that do not allow giraffe hunting — declined at an alarming rate. Recent conservation efforts have reversed or stabilised these trends since 2015.
Nonetheless, the reticulated giraffe (found mainly in Kenya) and the northern giraffe (found across East, Central and West Africa) are considered Endangered in the SoG25.
The Masai giraffe, evaluated as Vulnerable in the SoG25, is showing signs of a comeback in Tanzania and Kenya, which jointly host most of this species. While Tanzania does not allow giraffe hunting, it is a major hunting destination for other species, and much of its land is conserved under hunting concessions that provide critical giraffe habitat.
At a minimum, this assessment shows that legal trophy hunting does not threaten giraffe with extinction. When combining the CITES 2023 data used by Pinnock and the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting with the estimated national giraffe populations in the SoG25, we find that the 17 non-giraffe-hunting range states (including Tanzania) host on average 4,400 giraffe each.
Excluding Tanzania — given that hunting is a major activity for other species there — non-hunting range states host on average 2,874 giraffe each. The four giraffe-hunting range states host on average 16,474 giraffe each.
Does legal hunting facilitate illegal trade?
Getting around these simple statistics takes rhetorical tricks, which Bercovitch uses in CBTH’s virtually fact-free report, parroted uncritically by Pinnock.
With no way of claiming that legal hunting itself causes giraffe declines (given the opposite is true), Bercovitch resorts to the indirect trade theory: “Trophy hunting is endangering giraffes in Africa because the shipment of giraffe parts from legal hunting provides an avenue for the shipment of giraffe parts obtained illegally.”
To substantiate that statement, he misuses trade data from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He claims that the data indicate that 400 giraffe trophies were imported to the US annually over a 10-year period, while exporting nations reported only 300 giraffe hunts. Consequently, he says: “If those two figures are correct and reconciled, that means 25% of the giraffe specimens coming into the US are from illegally killed giraffes.”
Anyone who has examined wildlife trade data will expect the number of trophies imported to be different from the number of animals hunted. This is simply because import data is based on individual body parts of the animal, whereas one hunt accounts for the whole animal.
A giraffe has over 170 bones in its body, and one of the more common forms of giraffe trophy is ‘bone carvings’. The skin and skull are frequently reported separately from the bone carvings, and even “pieces of skin” and “tail hair” are reported separately in some cases.
One giraffe hunt could therefore easily produce many giraffe trophies, all from legal, regulated hunting activities of southern giraffe. Different parts of a giraffe may also be exported and imported separately (eg, the skull is taken home by the hunter as a trophy, while a bone or leather item from the same giraffe is sold as a curio to another tourist).
The CITES trade database is therefore not an accurate assessment of the number of animals harvested, and it cannot be used alone to determine whether the level of trade is sustainable. Population trends over time, as we have shown for giraffe, are more reliable ways of determining the positive or negative impact of trade.
Are giraffe only conserved in national parks?
Since South Africa is the largest exporter of giraffe body parts and hosts the largest population of southern giraffe, it is the ideal case study to test another false Bercovitch claim: “Giraffe numbers are increasing only in national parks and protected reserves – places where trophy hunting is banned.”
Counting giraffe accurately on private land is more difficult than on state land, since there are approximately 14,000 game ranches and private reserves scattered across South Africa, not all of which have giraffe.
The SoG25 southern giraffe estimate is the first that includes a comprehensive survey of privately owned giraffe in South Africa. The details of this survey are further broken down in a scientific paper authored by a team from GCF and the University of Mpumalanga.
This study reveals that nearly half (49.4%) of the nation’s giraffe occur on private land.
While the Kruger National Park hosts the biggest single giraffe population in the country (over 12,000), the paper’s authors attribute most of the national growth from 8,000 in the 1970s to nearly 30,000 today to the private sector.
Soon after the South African government allowed farmers on private land to own game animals (including giraffe) in 1991, the hunting industry grew, and so did giraffe and other game populations. Private game farmers often use hunting and tourism as complementary sources of income, or choose to focus more on one industry than the other.
Whether hunting, tourism or a mixture of these and other activities (eg meat production and livestock) is the better business model to follow will depend on each area’s unique circumstances. These include factors such as their location relative to tourist attractions, size of the property and availability of capital and expertise — none of which can be taken into account by Bercovitch’s blanket proposal to replace hunting with tourism in all areas.
Do rural communities benefit from giraffe hunting?
In Namibia, the hunting revenues generated in a communal conservancy are not paid to the government. The income goes directly to each conservancy based on their respective agreements with registered professional hunting outfitters. (Photo: Gail Thomson)
Bercovitch repeats a well-worn myth to support his case that people living in communal areas do not benefit enough from hunting giraffe or other species. Although he does not provide a reference for the statement, “independent studies suggest as little as 3% of trophy hunting revenue reaches households living near hunting concessions”, that figure can be traced back to a 2010 study that used data from hunters in Tanzania, a country that does not allow giraffe hunting.
The 3% figure was ripped out of its context, misrepresented and popularised in a report by Economists at Large. It has since been used by anti-hunting lobby groups without a clear explanation of where the figure comes from and what it meant in the original report.
Even if presented correctly, it no longer applies to Tanzania (after legal changes that increase community revenues) and has never applied to any other African country.
Anyone quoting this figure as though it applies across Africa for all time is misleading the public, and fails to acknowledge that each of the 54 African countries are independent states with their own laws.
A more relevant example of southern giraffe hunting on communal lands is north-west Namibia, where communal conservancies host a substantial population of free-roaming giraffe that are subject to a long-term research and monitoring project run by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, GCF.
According to SoG25, these conservancies host 16% of the country’s Angolan giraffe (a subspecies of southern giraffe), with the neighbouring Etosha National Park hosting 21%.
In terms of Namibian giraffe conservation, the conservancies are of similar importance to Etosha, and have been a key part of the growth of Angolan giraffe in range and numbers from 6,690 in 1995 to 13,895 in 2025.
Hunting is legal in all communal conservancies, with quotas based on population estimates produced by combining regular game counts with observations by community game guards. Giraffe are on the quota for several conservancies in the northwest for trophy and own use hunting.
In Namibia, the hunting revenues generated in a communal conservancy are not paid to the government. The income goes directly to each conservancy based on their respective agreements with registered professional hunting outfitters. The income is then managed by elected committees comprising local community members. Meat from the hunts (including giraffe meat) is distributed to the community immediately after each hunt.
Southern Africa is conserving its giraffe through hunting and tourism
The evidence and experience from southern Africa that led to the increase of southern giraffe provides a good model for giraffe conservation elsewhere. The national parks are core areas that need to be protected as population strongholds. Once that is achieved, further growth requires incentives for people on private and communal lands beyond national parks to introduce and maintain giraffe populations.
Hunting and photographic tourism, either combined or separately, are the two main options for generating income directly from giraffe and other animals on land outside national parks. In southern Africa, both are encouraged and facilitated by national authorities.
Achieving the above is easier said than done, as habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation, poaching and climate change all threaten the viability of national parks and the giraffe living in them to different degrees.
Varying government policies regarding the ownership and use of giraffe further limit the degree to which people living in other African countries can follow the southern African model.
Suggestions to ban the legal trade of all giraffe parts from hunting threaten southern giraffe conservation — the only species whose numbers have steadily increased during the past 30 years.
The one-size-fits-all policy for giraffe trade in CITES does not match the differing conservation statuses of the giraffe species revealed in SoG25.
While the two Endangered and one Vulnerable species require urgent protection from poaching and domestic trade (issues that CITES cannot deal with), there is no reason to undermine southern Africa’s successful model for the southern giraffe, which includes legal hunting and international trade.
The scientific evidence reveals that countries with stable and growing populations of giraffe (and other wildlife) are those that allow regulated hunting of giraffe, while countries that do not allow hunting have lost most of their giraffe, and remaining populations are in a precarious position.
Countries with legal, regulated hunting allow it not because they have healthy and increasing populations of giraffe (and other species), but rather, they have healthy wildlife populations because they allow regulated hunting.
While you may not like the idea of a hunter shooting a giraffe, shooting giraffe conservation in the foot — as Pinnock and Bercovitch advocate — is far worse. DM
Gail Thomson is with the Namibian Chamber of Environment. This article is co-signed by:
Dr Chris Brown, CEO, Namibian Chamber of Environment.
Dr Julian Fennessy, Director, Giraffe Conservation Foundation.
Dr Jeanetta Selier, Senior Scientist, Biodiversity Research, Assessments and Monitoring, South African National Biodiversity Institute.
Angus Middleton, Executive Director, Namibia Nature Foundation.
Prof Graham Kerley, Director, Centre for African Conservation Ecology, Nelson Mandela University.
Hazel Milne, Programme Coordinator for Sustainable Tourism Certification, Eco Awards Namibia Alliance.
David Peddie, Independent Wildlife Conservation Consultant.
Dr John Ledger, PhD, Consulting Editor, African Wildlife & Environment magazine.
Dr João Almeida, Director/Wildlife Veterinarian, Mozambique Wildlife Alliance.
Dr Richard Hoare, Independent Wildlife Veterinarian, IUCN SSC Giraffe & Okapi Specialist Group Member.
Colin Nott, Namibia Resource Consultants.
Patrick Worms, Senior Fellow, Global Evergreening Alliance.
Ruth Moldzio, CEO, Namibia Scientific Society.
John Pallett, NEWS (Namibian Environment and Wildlife Society).
Theresa Sowry, Southern African Wildlife College.
Dr Dilys Roe, Chair, IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi).
Prof Adam Hart, University of Gloucestershire, IUCN SULi member.
Dr Dan Challender, University of Oxford and IUCN SULi member.
Prof Brian Child, University of Florida.
Dr Shylock Muyengwa, Director, Resource Africa, South Africa.
Prof Amy Dickman, University of Oxford, Lion Landscapes and IUCN SULi member.
Nick Funda, Chairperson, Game Rangers Association of Africa, GRAA.
Peter Mills, Executive Committee member of Game Rangers Association of Africa, GRAA.
