We’ve had a fantastic 18 months of giraffe science publishing at the Wild Nature Institute, with 10 papers out in peer-reviewed scientific journals. These papers are all the product of our Masai Giraffe Conservation Demography Project, which is the largest individual-based study of giraffes in the world. We are grateful to the amazing giraffe scientists … Read more
How do you reverse a population decline and save an endangered species? This is the central question in conservation biology and it is the core of my scientific work. A population of animals like giraffes is almost always made up of smaller groups of animals that we call subpopulations. The animals in the subpopulations are … Read more
In response to recent scientific consensus on giraffes’ vulnerability to extinction, five wildlife protection groups today petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect Earth’s tallest land animal under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The legal petition, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society International, The Humane Society of the United States, … Read more
Some people might be confused by the media announcing that there are “now” four species of giraffes, followed shortly thereafter by the IUCN press release that there is one species of giraffe (with nine subspecies) now considered to be Vulnerable to Extinction on the Red List. The IUCN currently recognizes one species of giraffe with … Read more
In Summary: Drought has left wildebeests and zebras of the Tarangire Ecosystem in northern Tanzania without food or water on their calving grounds, disrupting their normal migration and forcing them to give birth near the Tarangire River. Tanzania is experiencing a drought after the short rainy season failed to deliver much-needed rainfall during recent months. … Read more
The USDA Forest Service is proposing widespread forest thinning on our public lands across the West in a misguided attempt to reduce the impact of drought, fire, and insects (see National Forest Restoration Projects, Sierra Nevada National Forest Land Management Plan Revisions, news articles). These logging schemes are the latest in a series of Forest … Read more