Happy World Giraffe Day! Check out the Giraffe Conservation Foundation to support great science and conservation across the continent. Funds generated from this year’s #WorldGiraffeDay will support a conservation translocation to augment the population of giraffe in Uganda’s Kidepo Valley National Park. I’ve studied giraffe in this beautifully rugged area for the past 3 years and this conservation initiative has the potential to be an important chapter in the remarkable narrative of giraffe in Uganda.

​The vast savannahs and striking mountainous terrain of Kidepo Valley National Park provides a stunning backdrop for a historically significant population of Nubian giraffe. This rugged landscape is home to one of only two remaining naturally occurring populations of giraffe in Uganda. The current Kidepo Valley National Park population, however, is only a small remnant of its prior size. What was once the historical stronghold of giraffe in Uganda, the Kidepo Valley National Park population was decimated by a period of civil unrest and intense poaching, bringing this important population to the brink of local extinction. Despite stabilization in the region and heroic conservation efforts of the Ugandan Wildlife Authority, giraffe in Kidepo Valley National Park have not returned to their previous population size. Recognizing the need for reliable ecological data to inform conservation strategy, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation and partners developed a conservation monitoring programme in 2015. This programme has grown from its early foundations in establishing baseline data on population size, structure and distribution to including a comprehensive population genetics study and a cutting edge GPS telemetry study to better understand the movement ecology of these giraffe. In April of 2018, a team of researchers and conservationists again traveled to Uganda’s frontier region to continue this study deepen insights into the ecology of giraffe in Kidepo Valley National Park and identify threats to this critical population of Nubian giraffe.