Giraffe Populations Down 40% In Past Fifteen Years

[hatrack]

Giraffe numbers are dwindling across Africa because of poaching and habitat loss caused by human population growth, according to wildlife experts, and it's happening largely unnoticed.

“It’s a silent extinction,” Dr. Julian Fennessy, Executive Director of the Namibian-based Giraffe Conservation Research group and a leading wildlife scientist with 16 years of experience, told ABC News.

Now conducting the first comprehensive assessment on giraffes to be published next year, Fennessy said there’s been a drop of more than 40 percent in the mammal population in the last 15 years. “The numbers have gone down from 140,000 to fewer than 80,000 today,” added Fennessy.

The world’s tallest animal is dispersed over 21 countries, in state-owned national parks, private and communal lands. Out of nine subspecies -- their differentiations are based on geographical distribution, coat patterns, morphology and genetic data -- two have recently been categorized as “endangered” on the IUCN Red List, a British research group part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

EDIT

http://abcnews.go.com/International/giraffes-danger-extinction-numbers-dropped/story?id=27334959

[shenmue]

1. Mercy

[ladjf]

2. Giraffes have existed for about 23 million years.

"The earliest form of the Giraffe, known as the climacoceras, which resembled a deer like creature, was alive during the early Miocene period, which was about 23 million years ago. "

At the current rate of 40% in 15 years, they will become extinct in about 50 more years.

Does anyone give a damn?

Apparently, the human race has infested Planet Earth, wiping out countless forms of life, including themselves. Good job humans!

[FiveGoodMen]

3. "Apparently, the human race has infested Planet Earth"

Human is too nice a word for what has infested the earth.

[ladjf]

4. Fundamentally, Nature simply moves forward in response to the laws of physics.

Humans are what they are as a result of their Evolutionary process. In many ways, we were incredibly fortunate to be equipped with so many survival talents. Yet, at the same time, it appears that our brains have developed some terrible flaws that are turning out to be fatal to life in general.

If it turns out the life dies on Earth, the Planet will still continue to respond to the physics as it always has. Ultimately, unless some as yet unknown phenomenon occurs, Earth with be enveloped by the expanding Sun as it turns into a red giant. The Big Bang continues to it's destiny.

There is a slim chance that humans might figure out better ways to live their lives. The "lottery of Evolution" continually rolls the dice.

[FiveGoodMen]

5. Agreed on all points

Just saying that the typical connotation of 'human' involves a belief in empathy and decency that certainly doesn't describe what we see everywhere around us.

'The vicious, stupid, filth species' would peg us a little more accurately at the present time.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. jaysus. And didn't a zoo just put down a healthy male giraffe a few months back?