Maasai Giraffe
Scientific name: Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi
Swahili name [1]: Twiga
IUCN status: Endangered
Threats and impacts [2]:
Four major threats to Giraffes can be identified, although the severity and presence of these threats varies by region and population: (1) habitat loss (through deforestation, land use conversion, expansion of agricultural activities and human population growth) (2) civil unrest (ethnic violence, rebel militias, paramilitary and military operations), (3) illegal hunting (poaching), and (4) ecological changes (mining activity, habitat conversion to agriculture, climate-induced processes).
Conservation:
The Giraffe Conservation Foundation is an umbrella organization promoting conservation of giraffe habitat, threat mitigation and awareness of giraffe issues in Africa [3]
Research has been devoted to cross-border conservation calling for a management framework between Kenya and Tanzania.[4]
Recent changes in status: There was a proposal to list the giraffe in CITES Appendix II in December 2018[5], however the Secretariat recommended rejecting that proposal because it did not meet the required criteria[6].
[1] http://www.kenyalogy.com/eng/fauna/gira.html
[2] Muller, Z., Bercovitch, F., Brand, R., Brown, D., Brown, M., Bolger, D., Carter, K., Deacon, F., Doherty, J.B., Fennessy, J., Fennessy, S., Hussein, A.A., Lee, D., Marais, A., Strauss, M., Tutchings, A. & Wube, T. 2018. Giraffa camelopardalis (amended version of 2016 assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T9194A136266699. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T9194A136266699.en. Downloaded on 9 August 2019.
[3] https://giraffeconservation.org/
[4] Okello, M.M., et al. (2015) Population Status and Trend of the Maasai Giraffe in the Mid Kenya-Tanzania Borderland. Natural Resources, 6, 159-173. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/nr.2015.63015
[6] https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/cop/18/doc/E-CoP18-105-01-A1.pdf
Photo credit: C.Wing Yiu