The Rothschild’s giraffe is the latest charismatic African mammal to be declared “Endangered” by IUCN (the International Union for the Conservation of Nature), adding to the growing number of species under threat of extinction.

According to a IUCN statement issued in Nairobi Wednesday, there are currently nine recognized giraffe sub-species and the Rothschild’s is the second most imperilled, with fewer than 670 individuals remaining in the wild.

Historically ranging across western Kenya, Uganda, and southern Sudan, it has been almost totally eliminated from most of its former range and now survives in only a few small and isolated populations in Kenya and Uganda.

In Kenya, all known wild populations of Rothschild’s giraffe have been eradicated by agricultural development and remnant populations are confined to National Parks, private properties and other protected areas.

“These remaining populations are physically isolated from one another making it impossible for them to interbreed and population growth is further hindered as a result of the closed nature of these conservation areas which have reached or exceeded carrying capacities,”‘ said the statement.

Sixty per cent of the world’s remaining wild population of Rothschild’s giraffe are found in Kenya (with the remainder in Uganda), a country that has recently shown its commitment to giraffe conservation.

Kenya is home to about 60 per cent of the global population of wild Rothschild’s giraffe with Ruma National Park in Nyanza Province(western Kenya) having the single largest meta-population (130 individuals) in the country.

Joseph Kimani