Giraffes range across diverse African habitats − we’re using GPS, satellites and statistics to track and protect them

• The remarkably detailed Dabous giraffe rock art petroglyphs are among many ancient petroglyphs featuring giraffes across Africa – a testament to early humans’ fascination with these unique creatures.
• To understand how giraffes are faring across Africa, conservation ecologists like me are studying how they interact with their habitats across vast geographic scales.

Many habitats and challenges

• By our best estimates, there are roughly 117,000 giraffes remaining in the wild, living in 21 African countries.
• For example, in the relatively arid Sahel region of Niger, they live among communal farmers entirely outside of formally protected areas.
• There is no one-size-fits-all approach for protecting giraffe habitats and promoting coexistence with people.

Tracking wide-ranging animals

• Each tracking operation contributes to local studies by telling us something interesting about giraffe behavior.
• To look at these patterns at a larger scale in our recent study, we analyzed GPS tracking data from 148 giraffes, representing all four species from across 10 countries.
• We used environmental data from satellite imagery, linking the giraffes’ locations to the exact conditions that the animals were moving through.
• They traveled faster and covered larger areas when they were moving between resource-rich zones and more heavily developed areas.

Giraffe movements inform conservation

• Conservation strategies will need to account for giraffes’ changing movements as the animals respond to these shifts.
• Conservation groups and governments are increasingly using conservation translocations – capturing wild giraffes and moving them to new habitats – as a tool to reestablish populations in areas where giraffes had previously become extinct.