Wild Nature Institute's Monica Bond successfully defended her PhD on 8 May from the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zürich. Her research focused on the dynamics of a socially and spatially structured giraffe population in a coupled natural-human landscape, the Tarangire Ecosystem.

From all of us at the Wild Nature Institute, happy Earth Day! This is the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day in April 1970. Humanity is now much more aware of the fragility of our precious planet, and the threats. But we have a long way to go to protect the web of life. We hope the lessons learned from the biodiversity and climate crises, and from the Covid-19 pandemic unleashed by our exploitation of nature, will lead to a brighter, healthier, happier future for all life on Earth.

The primary schools in Tanzania are closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But learning about giraffes doesn't have to be put on hold. Glory is a class six student at Mtowambu Primary School. Yesterday she went to the Wild Nature Institute office in Mtowambu and borrowed a Juma the Giraffe book to read to her younger siblings while they looked after the family's goats. As James Madeli, Wild Nature Institute's Education Coordinator said, "They have shown that they love stories about giraffes, and that makes me happy." Thank you Glory for teaching your siblings about giraffes, and thank you James for sharing this inspirational story. We need more happy stories in these challenging times.

#StandTallforGiraffe
#wildnature
#wildlife
#conservationscience
Penn State Eberly College of Science
Sacramento Zoo
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
The Living Desert
Zoo Miami Conservation & Research
Tierpark Berlin
Tulsa Zoo
Como Park Zoo & Conservatory
Greater Sac Chapter of American Association of Zoo Keepers - AAZK

A beautiful and inspiring song about saving giraffes by the talented Shubert Mwarabu. Produced by Wild Nature Institute.

James brings Wild Nature Institute's Africa's Giants children's storybooks to Seronera Primary School in the heart of Serengeti National Park.

#StandTallForGiraffes
With our partners we are running the world's largest #giraffe #research and #education program helping people and giraffes thrive together. 30,000 kids reached, 4000 giraffes monitored. We are grateful to the following organizations for supporting our work:
andBeyondTravel
Asilia Africa
Nomad Tanzania
Tarangire Safari Lodge
Save The Giraffes
Como Park Zoo & Conservatory
Zoo Miami
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
Tierpark Berlin
Tulsa Zoo
The Living Desert
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
Greater Sac Chapter of American Association of Zoo Keepers - AAZK
Sacramento Zoo

In 2019, the Wild Nature Institute continued our long-term science, education, and advocacy work for wildlife in places that are biologically rich but threatened by human activities.

This year we published five new scientific papers about giraffes and helped obtain endangered status for Masai giraffes. We completed our full set of educational materials and activity guides for all three megaherbivores in our Celebrating Africa’s Giants program, continued our education program at schools across Tanzania, organized a Giraffe Fun Day, and planted trees on International Day of Forests. We spread giraffe conservation messages across Tanzania via creative multi-media including a gospel song on the radio, a music video on buses, and videobooks of our children’s stories on television. We also launched the first edition of Nature’s Giants magazine for children in the U.S.A.

We continued and expanded the world’s largest demographic study of giraffes, began a new giraffe genetics project, and started integrating social perception surveys into our programs.

Read our 2019 Annual Report for more information about all of our programs. As always, we are grateful to all of our donors and supporters, without whom our work would not be possible. #StandTallforGiraffes

Wild Nature Institute just completed our 51st survey for giraffe photographic identification! We've been conducting these surveys over the past 9 years in the Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem. In early 2019, we trained an all-Tanzanian crew to conduct the photographic surveys, so instead of 2 surveys per season (3 seasons/year) we now conduct 3 surveys per season, one by our "Team Alpha" Tanzanian crew. In this way we not only collect more data but also teach Tanzanians to do this giraffe research so it can continue in perpetuity.

Now we're off to Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area to begin collecting our second year of giraffe photographic identification data in these protected areas. Our goal is to compare birth, death, and movement rates in the Serengeti-Ngorongoro Ecosystem with rates from a similar study conducted 10 years ago, and with the Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem.

As always we are incredibly grateful to our wonderful donors, without whom we could not do this giraffe conservation research. Thanks especially to #ColumbusZoo, #SacramentoZoo, #TulsaZoo, #TierparkBerlin, #ZooMiami, #ComoParkZoo, #CincinnatiZoo, #SafariWest, #SaveTheGiraffes, and Sacramento Chapter of the AAZK.
Thank you for #StandingTallForGiraffes

Kudos to Wild Nature Institute's Education Coordinator James Madeli, who has been doing a great job integrating our 'Celebrating Africa's Giants' education program into the curriculum of primary and secondary schools in the Tarangire-Manyara region.

Our books and posters and hands-on activities make it fun to learn about giraffes, elephants, and rhinos - which is particularly important in the schools surrounding Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks where these animals live. The activities use the charismatic mega-herbivores to teach broader subjects as well, like mathematics, ecology, and language.

Our hope is these kids will become Tanzanian giraffe, elephant, and rhino heroes in their communities, and help protect these magnificent animals and the habitats they need to survive.

Masai giraffes are the world’s tallest herbivores and beloved by people around the globe, but were recently classified as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). New research from Wild Nature Institute, published in the science journal Oecologia, showed how food, predators, and people all influence giraffe social behavior. In particular, the international team of researchers University of Zürich and Penn State University pinpointed the special requirements needed by mother giraffes to keep their babies safe, which can help land managers to protect the places most important for giraffes.

“Like all herbivores, giraffes need to find quality food to survive, but also need to avoid lions, or at least see them coming,” noted lead author Monica Bond, Wild Nature Institute principal scientist and PhD candidate at the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich. “Giraffes in our huge, unfenced study area can choose from among many different places to spend their time – places with different kinds of trees and bushes, and places deep inside protected parks or closer to farming towns or ranchlands where people live. There are lots of options in this landscape, including fewer lions outside the parks versus inside. So we wondered, how do these options influence giraffe grouping behavior? These data help us know what places are most important for these magnificent animals.” The study found that groups composed of adult giraffes were food-focused, not affected by predation risk. Adults formed the largest groups, up to 66 individuals, in the rainy season when food is plentiful, but smaller groups during the dry season when food is harder to find. In contrast, predation risk was a very important factor influencing congregations with calves.
“Giraffe calves are vulnerable to being killed by lions and other carnivores, while adults are typically large enough to escape predation,” stated senior author Barbara König, professor at the University of Zürich. “We were testing hypotheses about mother and calf behavior to see if their strategy was for calves to hide in thick bushes to avoid predators, be in the open to see predators coming, or be in large groups for many eyes and lower individual risk.” The researchers documented that in areas with the most lions, groups with calves were found more often in dense bushes than open grasslands, and those groups were smaller in size. This suggests giraffe mothers and calves have a strategy of hiding in dense bushes, rather than staying in open areas to better see lions, or gathering in large groups to dilute the predation risk. These results mean that dense bushlands are important habitat for giraffe calves and should be protected. Some cattle ranchers promote shrub removal to encourage grass for their livestock, but they share the rangelands with giraffes and other browsers that use shrubs.
The study also explored the influence of humans on giraffe grouping behaviors. “Outside the parks the human population has been rapidly expanding in recent years,” said co-author Derek Lee, Wild Nature Institute principal scientist and associate research professor of biology at Penn State University. “Therefore, we felt it was important to understand how human presence affected grouping behavior, as natural giraffe habitat is ever-more dominated by people.” Interestingly, adult females with calves were more likely to be found closer to traditional pastoralist compounds called bomas, made by livestock-keeping, non-farming people. “We suspect this is because the pastoralists may disrupt predator behaviors to protect their livestock—and this benefits the giraffe calves,” noted Lee. Conversely, calf groups avoided areas close to farming peoples’ towns, suggesting a difference between traditional bomas versus more densely populated human settlements for giraffe mothers seeking food and safety for themselves and their calves.
“We were happy to find that traditional human settlements by ranchers appear to be compatible with the persistence of giraffe populations,” stated Bond. “But on the other hand, disturbances around towns likely represent a threat and should be limited in areas favored by giraffes.” The study was part of the world’s largest giraffe research project and used data from six years of systematic seasonal surveys across a 2,000 square kilometer area. Learn more about giraffe research and conservation at http://www.wildnatureinstitute.org/giraffe.html