The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal Wednesday to protect a wide swath of giraffes under the Endangered Species Act, the first time the animal would receive protection under the law.
U.S. officials hope the move will help clamp down on the poaching of giraffes by restricting the import of their body parts and products such as rugs, jewelry and shoes made with them, which are contributing to their declines.
Its numbers nosedived from over 150,000 individuals in 1985 to about 98,000 in 2015, the result of habitat loss due to rapid urbanization, climate-change-fueled drought, poaching for local bushmeat and foreign trade. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a network that tracks the status of plants and animals, recognized several subspecies of giraffe as critically endangered since 2018.
Now, U.S. officials are proposing to declare as endangered three subspecies of northern giraffe: the West African, Kordofan and Nubian giraffes, whose population together has plunged by 77 percent since 1985, from approximately 26,000 to just 6,000. These giraffes primarily live in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Uganda.
In addition, the agency is proposing to designate two subspecies in East Africa — the reticulated and Masai giraffes — as threatened, a step away from being at the verge of extinction.
The United States has proved to be a big market for giraffe parts and products in the past, importing nearly 40,000 over a decade-long period, according to environmental groups.