Giraffes are vulnerable to extinction. So why won’t America decide on protecting them until 2025?

Since the mid-eighties, giraffes have been on a steady decline. Population numbers have dwindled by 40 per cent, leaving around 68,000 mature adults in the wild.

To put it in context, there is reportedly one giraffe for every four African elephants, which themselves are considered a vulnerable species.

Despite giraffes’ precarious status, dubbed a “silent extinction” by conservationists since the tragedy has happened largely unnoticed, they are not listed under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). In fact, until last year, there were no international regulations to monitor their trade.

If giraffes were protected by the ESA, it would mean tighter restrictions on taking them from the wild, transporting or selling them. It could also unlock federal aid for cooperating countries who have populations of giraffes, according to its details.

Our Stop The Illegal Wildlife Trade campaign, launched by The Independent's largest shareholder Evgeny Lebedev, is calling for an international effort to clamp down on the illegal trade of wild animals, which remains one of the greatest threats to future biodiversity.

In 2017, a coalition of conservation groups aimed to correct this by petitioning the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), who oversee the law, to list giraffes.

After a two-year delay (and a lawsuit from the groups), FWS found that there was “substantial information on potential threats” to giraffes and listing them “may be warranted”.

However the decision-making process will not begin until 2025, to the alarm of some animal welfare activists.

“Given the level of threat and the urgency with which we must act to protect giraffes and many other species, we hope that the agency will act accordingly and make its decision to list the species as endangered much sooner than 2025,” said Paul Todd, senior staff attorney of the nature program at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), who was one of the petitioners.

“We stand ready to do what we can and what is necessary to help make that happen.”

Ben Williamson, Programs Director, World Animal Protection, US added: “The protection of giraffes under the Endangered Species Act is long overdue. These iconic animals are under threat from the usual evils of habitat destruction and poaching, and the misguided human curiosity that sees their furry tan skin turned into rugs, and long bones turned into trinkets.

“Designating giraffes as endangered or threatened would place much-needed restrictions on the ability of vulgar people with deep pockets and shallow souls to shoot them and import their body parts into the U.S., and will make more funding available for conserving the species in the wild."

The Independent had contacted the FWS for comment.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which tracks the planet’s most at-risk species, has declared the giraffe “vulnerable to extinction”.

There are four species of giraffe – Masai, southern, northern and Reticulated - and five subspecies within those, according to Giraffe Conservation Society.

The Kordofan giraffe, which inhabits Central Africa, have lost 90 per cent of its population in the past 40 years. Just 2,000 of this giraffe are left in the wild.

The Nubian giraffe, which once roamed across Northeast Africa, is now largely extinct in much of its historic range. It has lost 98 per cent of its population - leaving just 455 in the wild - and lives only on protected lands in Kenya.

The role that both the legal and illegal wildlife trade has played in giraffes' dwindling numbers is difficult to assess as research on the species across their African habitats has been limited, IUCN noted. In fact it was only a handful of years ago that it was discovered that there are in fact four distinct species.

A 2018 investigation, by Humane Society International (HSI), found that 40,000 giraffe parts were imported into the US from Africa between 2006-2015. Among these were 3,700 hundred trophies, equivalent to one a day.

Dr Fred Bercovitch, executive director of Save the Giraffes, told the New York Times last year that although more than 90 per cent of the parts were considered legal imports, 50 came from the critically at-risk Nubian giraffe.

Adam Peyman, programs and operations manager of HSI's wildlife department, told The Independent: “If giraffes were listed as endangered under the ESA, it would set a much higher bar for importing.

"Because it's so clear that the US is a major market for giraffe products it’s very important that this species, which is really in trouble, be offered as high a protection as other similarly imperilled species.”

In the wild, giraffes face a myriad of threats, not all that can be mitigated by regulation.

The species are at risk from habitat loss and degradation due to land clearance for agriculture; growing human populations and the complex impacts of the climate crisis. Close proximity to domestic livestock can also result in the transmission of diseases to giraffes.

The species have been caught in the cross-hairs of war and civil unrest in regions of central and east Africa. Others have fallen victim to poaching, both for bushmeat in local markets, and to be carved up and trafficked in the illegal wildlife trade.

The alarming reduction in giraffe numbers led to countries who are party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty to enhance protections for giraffes.

It means that while international trade in giraffes is still allowed, countries must apply restrictions to try to curb the decline in population numbers.

And while the US supported the CITES ruling, it has yet to make a call on the ESA.

However, being protected under the act is not without complications.

David O’Connor, president of Save Giraffes Now, told The Independent: “One of the unintended consequences of listing giraffes under the Endangered Species Act is that it could impact well-managed, legal trophy hunting of the Southern giraffe that can fund conservation."

Southern giraffe populations have been stable and increasing for almost 40 years. Mr O'Connor emphasised that trophy hunting is an animal welfare issue but not a conservation one as it's not a driver of extinction or population loss.

“For every other giraffe species, where trophy hunting is illegal, the biggest threats are on the ground: Illegal poaching, political unrest, habitat loss and growing infrastructure,” he said.

Mr O’Connor suggested that a compromise may be to list giraffes, not in their entirety, but as separate species.m“I would look at each type of giraffe individually, at the context and conditions.”

Still, there are benefits to ESA protection.

“If giraffes were listed, it would release federal funding for conservation projects on the ground in Africa and shine some much-needed light on the plight of endangered species, such as the Nubian giraffe, for example,” he added.

It is unclear why decision making will not begin until 2025 but giraffes are not the only species to face a lengthy process.

A decision on whether pangolins, who played a suspected role in the Covid-19 pandemic, will be protected under the ESA will finally be decided next June, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said this week However it’s taken “the last half decade” to get to this point, Angela Grimes, CEO of Born Free USA, pointed out.

Trump’s proposed federal budget for 2021 also cut funding to wildlife conservation programmes (along with those to tackle the climate crisis).

Under the proposal, FWS would be forced to operate with a $80 million deficit, according to CBD.

The agency is already working with a reported $267million budget cut this year, a reduction of 16 per cent from 2019 funding levels. For conservationists it is a timeline that could have far-reaching consequences.

“How do we tell our great-grandchildren that we had a chance to save these magnificent mammals, yet failed to do so?” Mr Williamson said.

"The Endangered Species Act exists for precisely this reason—to guarantee future generations’ right to share the planet with these evolutionary marvels.”