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West Africa's last giraffes make surprise comeback
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-08 10:58

Dovi said five were captured. Three died on the spot; two were believed shipped to Burkina Faso. Nobody knows if they ever made it.

By 1998, Niger's government - pressed by conservation groups - began to realize the herds were about to disappear forever.

Authorities drafted new laws banning hunting and poaching. Killing a giraffe became punishable by five-year jail terms and fines amounting to hundreds of times the yearly income of farmers.

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The changes had a startling effect: by 2004, the herds had nearly doubled in size.

The government "realized they had an invaluable biological and tourism resource: the last population left in West Africa," said Jean-Patrick Suraud, a French scientist with the Association to Safeguard the Giraffes of Niger.

In Africa, giraffe skin is used for drums, watertight bowls, even shoes. Their bones are employed as grinders and some believe they can help bring rain. Mounkaila, the guide, said some villagers believe the hair on giraffe coats can induce fertility.

The villagers living around Koure, though, think giraffes are mostly useless, Suraud said. They aren't domesticated, and they can't be hunted for food. So the Association to Safeguard the Giraffes of Niger tries to teach people it's in their interest to keep them around.

"We tell them, 'if you are pro-giraffe, we can support you, give you loans,'" Suraud said. "But there is a quid pro quo. 'We also want you to stop chopping down their bushes and plant trees.'"

With 10 staff and help from private European zoos and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Giraffe Association has built wells, planted trees and educated guides like Mounkaila who make a living escorting visitors through "the giraffe zone" - the fenceless region the animals trek through.