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201805Jan21:37

Study sug­gests lions are bad news for giraffe pop­u­la­tions in con­ser­va­tion areas

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pub­lished 05 Jan­u­ary 2018 | mod­i­fied 05 Jan­u­ary 2018
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New research from the Uni­ver­sity of Bris­tol is call­ing for an urgent review into how pop­u­la­tions of giraffes are man­aged in the wild when liv­ing along­side lions.

It is com­monly accepted that lions are the only preda­tors to pose a risk to giraffes on an indi­vid­ual basis but there has never been a study to inves­ti­gate how the pres­ence of lions impacts on the pop­u­la­tion as a whole. Now, in the first study of its kind, pub­lished on 3 Jan­u­ary in the jour­nal PLOS ONE, Bris­tol PhD stu­dent Zoe Muller has found that if lions are kept in the same con­ser­va­tion area as giraffes, the num­ber of calves is likely to be reduced, maybe as much as 82 percent.

giraffe and calves  KenyaGiraffe and calves in the wild.
Image credit: Zoe Muller — Uni­ver­sity of Bristol.

Zoe, based at the University’s School of Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences, said: “It is thought that lions pref­er­en­tially tar­get giraffe calves in the wild, and there is anec­do­tal evi­dence of this, includ­ing obser­va­tions of lions eat­ing young giraffe car­casses and of lion claw marks on adult females (thought to be a result of them defend­ing their calves). How­ever, no-​one has ever inves­ti­gated if this pref­er­ence for hunt­ing calves has an impact on the pop­u­la­tion as a whole.”

The study
giraffe study riftvalleyThis study inves­ti­gates how the pop­u­la­tion demog­ra­phy of giraffes, in the Great Rift Val­ley of Kenya, dif­fers between two adja­cent sites — one with no lions, and one with a high den­sity of lions, and found that the pres­ence of lions has a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the demog­ra­phy of giraffe pop­u­la­tions. In areas con­tain­ing no lions, the giraffe pop­u­la­tion con­tained 34 per­cent of juve­niles (indi­vid­u­als less than a year old) but in the pres­ence of lions it only con­tained six per­cent juve­niles. Giraffe pop­u­la­tions have declined by 40 per­cent in the last 30 years, and there are now thought to be fewer than 98,000 indi­vid­u­als remain­ing in the wild.

In recog­ni­tion of their dras­tic decline in the wild, they have recently been listed as Vul­ner­a­ble on the Inter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion in Nature’s Red List of Threat­ened Species. How­ever, con­ser­va­tion review is ongo­ing due to cur­rent debate over their tax­o­nomic sta­tus, since some sub­species may be even more at risk of extinc­tion than is cur­rently recognised.

The con­tin­ual loss of juve­niles within a pop­u­la­tion due to lion pre­da­tion may lead to an unre­cov­er­able sit­u­a­tion where the pop­u­la­tion crashes, since pop­u­la­tion growth and sus­tain­abil­ity rely on enough calves sur­viv­ing until they are sex­u­ally mature.

Zoe Muller, author, School of Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences, Uni­ver­sity of Bris­tol, UK, and Giraffe Research and Con­ser­va­tion Trust, Nairobi, Kenya

Zoe added: “This research has sig­nif­i­cant prac­ti­cal impli­ca­tions. Giraffes are a threat­ened species, suf­fer­ing ongo­ing decline in the wild, and this research high­lights how man­ag­ing giraffes along­side lions inside a con­ser­va­tion area (a com­mon prac­tice in Africa) has detri­men­tal effects for giraffe pop­u­la­tions. This research high­lights the need for an urgent reassess­ment of how pop­u­la­tions of giraffes are man­aged in the wild, given their Vul­ner­a­ble Red List sta­tus and severe and ongo­ing decline.”

The next steps for this research will be to repli­cate the find­ings in other areas of Africa. This is one case study from East Africa, and more research is needed to see if lions cre­ate the same effects in other giraffe populations.

(Source: Uni­ver­sity of Bris­tol press release, 03.01.2018)


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