Giraffes need new protections under the United States Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials proposed on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
West African, Kordofan and Nubian giraffes would be listed as endangered under the proposal. The Reticulated, Masai, Angolan and South African giraffes would be listed as threatened with a 4(d) rule, meaning the FWS would issue protective regulations deemed “necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of” threatened species, per the proposal.
The reticulated and Masai giraffes would be considered threatened. The Angolan and South African giraffes are not currently endangered like the other species, but they would be treated as if they are due to their similar appearance, which would limit law enforcement’s ability to tell them apart.
The rule proposes reducing illegal hunting and trade of giraffes by requiring permits for import into the U.S., providing limited financial assistance for conservation, increasing funding for species conservation, increasing research efforts in conservation and increasing funding for U.S. and global awareness about the decline in giraffes.
“This action supports giraffe conservation while ensuring the United States does not contribute further to their decline,” Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement.
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There are approximately 117,000 wild giraffes around the world, per the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. This number has decreased by nearly 30% since the 1980s. Meanwhile, the population of northern giraffes has declined from 25,653 to 5,919, around a 77% decline. Additionally, some are completely gone from West African countries.
“We actually realized that there are fewer giraffes in Africa than elephants,” said Tanya Sanerib, international legal director with the Center for Biological Diversity, per The New York Times. “The species had been undergoing a silent extinction.”
The decrease in population has been attributed to poaching, climate change drought and people’s seizing land for urbanization and agriculture. In 2022, the last year to capture international data on the animals, it was discovered that thousands of giraffe parts—trophies, skins, feet, bones, bone carvings, and leather pieces—entered the U.S.
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List deemed that giraffes (considered a single species) were threatened with extinction in 2016. As a result, advocacy groups began to petition for federal protections in 2017.
After the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register on Nov. 21, it will be open for public comment for 90 days, the FWS notes. It could be finalized within a year, per the Times.
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