Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes

Giraffe torso photos used to identify more than 3000 individual giraffes as part of the world's largest giraffe study.

Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so naturally scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation.  Researchers from Penn State and Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the biggest large mammal studies ever undertaken by studying births, deaths, and movements of more than 3,000 giraffes across a 4,000 square kilometre landscape … Read more

Seeing Spots: New Study Reveals the Giraffe Babies Inherit Spot Patterns from Their Mothers and Certain Spot Traits Improve Newborn Survival

50-year-old Hypothesis Confirmed with Modern Techniques The beautiful coat patterns of giraffes are individually unique and don’t change with age, but their origins and purpose were a mystery. A new study found wild giraffe spot pattern traits were heritable, passed down from mother to offspring, and certain spot traits improved survival of newborns. Quantifying heritability … Read more

Community Wildlife Management Areas Are Successfully Conserving Wildlife in Tanzania

A group of Masai Giraffes in the Tarangire Ecosystem.

·         A new study found community-based wildlife conservation in Tanzania can quickly result in clear ecological success by benefitting giraffes and other wildlife species. Arusha, TANZANIA, 10 August 2018- Community-based natural resource management is a grassroots conservation tool that has become one of the dominant paradigms of natural resource conservation worldwide. In Tanzania, efforts to … Read more

Giraffe Skin Disease Linked to Soil Fertility

Giraffe in Tarangire National Park

Giraffe Skin Disease is a disorder of the skin that is characterized by crusty lesions on the back side of the front legs of adult Masai giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) the only subspecies in Tanzania. Lesions such as the ones shown in this picture on the forelimbs indicate Giraffe Skin Disease. Giraffe Skin Disease was first … Read more

Community-Based Wildlife Conservation in Tanzania Yields Ecological Success

Dik-diks in Randilen WIldlife Management Area, Tanzania, East Africa. Dik-diks were among the wildlife species that benefitted from the community-based wildlife conservation area.

Good news about the environment is rare these days, but in Tanzania there are signs that local wildlife conservation efforts can effectively protect the natural resources that provide the lion’s share of revenue for the economy. Eco-tourism is Tanzania’s largest economic sector and biggest dollar earner for this developing nation, but wildlife populations have suffered … Read more

A Brief History of Field Work on Giraffe before the Year 2000

Anne Dagg, Canadian zoologist, biologist, feminist, and author of numerous books.

Today, I am featuring a guest post by Anne Innis Dagg, a Canadian zoologist, biologist, feminist, and author of numerous books. She has been referred to as “the Jane Goodall of giraffes” and has made a significant contribution to giraffes worldwide in an unprecedented way. Dagg went to Africa in the mid-1950s to study giraffes, … Read more