Giraffes listed as vulnerable species

The stately 18-foot-tall giraffe is among the animals ecologists call “charismatic megafauna,” the name for critters that elicit squeals of delight at the zoo and warm the cockles of corporate marketers. Of the most charming beasts, though, giraffes never managed to generate attention on par with rhinoceroses — a subspecies of which is poised to vanish — or elephants, facing a long history of ivory poaching.

Researchers were not immune to passing over the giraffe, either. In September, Axel Janke, a German evolutionary biologist laid it out to National Geographic like this: “Only 400 scientific papers have been written about giraffes, versus 20,000 papers on white rhinos.” The animal was so understudied how many species of giraffe exist is a matter of debate.

But it was agreed, during a meeting of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature on Wednesday, that the tallest species on the planet was rarer than previously understood.

“There is a silent extinction going on,” said Julian Fennessy, an IUCN giraffe specialist and director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, to The Washington Post by phone Thursday.

The IUCN, an international NGO headquartered in Switzerland, manages guidelines called the Red List. The Red List is designed to help nations conserve threatened species. If sufficient information exists about the animals, the list classifies creatures on a scale from least concern to extinct. In 2010, the IUCN listed the giraffe as species of least concern.

On Wednesday, the IUCN downgraded the giraffe from least concern, skipped “near threatened” and classified the animal as vulnerable. The giraffe shares this status with the cheetah, the leatherback sea turtle and other rarities. Giraffes are now considered by the IUCN to be as threatened as African elephants, though the giraffe population is a quarter of the pachyderms.

“One of the world’s most recognizable animals and the tallest land mammal,” wrote the IUCN in a statement Thursday, “is now threatened with extinction.”

Giraffes numbered between 151,000 and 163,000 animals, according to a 1985 estimate. A new assessment, per a IUCN giraffe specialist group formed four years ago, determined the animals declined to 97,562 in 2015. That is, over the course of three giraffe generations, the population plummeted between 36 and 40 percent. Going back even further in history, Fennessy said, could paint an even grimmer picture; 200 years ago, it is possible there were a million giraffes across Africa, he said.

The IUCN cited human population growth and poaching as factors for the decline. Habitat loss, too, played a role. A June 2015 study of Serengeti giraffes found their diet took a hit after woody, “unpalatable species” of trees grew up where the tastier acacia plants once grew. In areas disturbed by war and civil unrest, like South Sudan, giraffe subspecies such as the Nubian giraffe have dropped by as much as 95 percent.

Fennessy hopes the vulnerable status will bring needed attention to giraffes.