"THE GIRAFFE STORY: PROTECTING GENTLE GIANTS" with Stephanie Fennessy

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I'm Betcha, you've never met anyone that told you they didn't like Dirac.

I like him so much. I actually wrote a children's book in the main character. Guess what? That's right. A Dirac.

Today's episode's Stephanie Fenishishi joins me. She's a co-founder along with her husband Julian of the Dirac Conservation Foundation. Now, GCF Story begins several years ago during the 1990s in the Mibia, Africa, but let's just fast forward to today. They now work in 21 African countries and have an impact of over 1 million acres.

That's right. 1 million acres. These guys, they work tirelessly to raise awareness, conduct research, and protect these really lovable animals. It really is a fascinating story, so just think about this.

Working in 21 different countries, that means different cultures, different governments. So these guys, they've got to be really nimble and adaptive at any given moment. Now, have you heard about the world draft day? Well, guess what? They made it happen.

So on June 21, I put it in your calendars if you didn't know. Now, we're going to go really deep into everything that they do, and it's a lot.

But first, let me give you a couple of trivia treats.

A herd of drafts? They're also called towers. I wonder why.

“Now, herd of drafts walk in together to go somewhere?”

You know what they call them? A journey. Now, here's a cool one. Did you know this while healing word for draft is twiga? Now, it's really easy to remember.

Think about them eating leaves among the twigs of a tree. Now, the draft is supposed to have the largest heart of any land animal. And guess what? Your heart may swell up that big. Once you get to meet one of my favorite animals, the draft. Yeah, it's from wacky to a say for real.

You're not too dense for real. With your host, Mark Kyle. Welcome back to the Frio podcast today. I'm one that's really close to my heart. And we can talk about that later.

But my guest today is Stephanie Fenisev. Steph, welcome to the show. And I can't wait to talk about drafts.

“Well, you guys are doing your husband or doing because you're doing some pretty amazing things.”

So welcome to the show. Thanks, Mark. It's great to be here. Well, you know, like I said when we do this and anybody that's listened before. Typically what I like to do is talk about you.

Let's talk about you, Angelian, and how you guys got to where you are. But I want to start with you, we're young. Because not everybody goes to Namibia. I hope I said it right. I'm terrible pronouncing.

But I want to talk about your journey. How you got there. And let's talk about the really pretty amazing things you guys should know. But let's start with you. How you got there.

And Julian, how you met your man. And then we'll go from there. Yeah. It's a long and complicated story. But the short of it is that I'm married into draft conservation.

I came to Namibia to do research from my master. So I'm German. I grew up in Germany. And then I studied for my master's in environmental engineering in Stockholm and Sweden. And there was a few Africans in my course.

And there was really interesting.

I'd never really thought about Africa ever before.

Never had any intention to travel here. But yeah, the people were really interesting. And the topics were interesting. So I was fascinated. So I came to Namibia in the late 90s.

I'm giving my age away here. To do research from my master's. And I fell in love with the country. I came back the next year to take up the job. Just a six months job with the Namibian NGO, the Desert Research Foundation.

And I met Julian. I fell in love. And the rest is history. So what was Julian there? He saw Australian.

But we're brought him there. Because you guys are the two. You know, you're the ones doing this.

Yeah, so Julian came to Namibia a couple of years before me. So he went when he was 16.

“He went from Australia to South Africa as a exchange student.”

And he was really lucky to stay with the family that traveled a lot. So he saw wildlife. He went to Kruger and other national parks and in South Africa. And he'd be fell in love with wildlife.

He always wanted to become to study something and finance.

Which sometimes I wish he had. Because we would have far more money than that. You were probably not able to do that. So he fell in love with with Africa then. So he came back also in the mid 90s.

Oh yeah, in the mid 90s to as originally as Australian development worker. And worked in environmental education. And then we ended up in the same project at the Desert Research Foundation. So total coincidence. We spent a lot of time in the far north west, very remote.

And yeah, we fell in love. So the project we worked in was a catchman study of a.

“Of a, a femoral seasonally flowing river.”

So we wanted to understand how it works and I did a lot of community work. And there was elephant and giraffe in this really fascinating Desert landscape. Super arid, only vegetation along this dry, sandy river bit. And giraffe and elephant competed for resources there. So during started doing research initially for his masters and then for his PhD.

Originally looking at the competition between elephant and giraffe. But he pretty is a smart guy who found. You realize that there's a lot of people working in elephant research. There was a lot of big personalities in elephant conservation. But no one had done anything about giraffe.

So he started doing his PhD on giraffe. And at that stage we had different jobs. I worked for the university. And I helped him a lot to develop the research program for his PhD. And yeah, the rest is history.

That's when we basically started working in giraffe and as one aspect of his PhD.

We realized that there's far less giraffe in Africa than people thought. And that there's just really nothing known about them. So we kind of found it gap in conservation. Well, let's say he was really smart because he found you. Let's go with that one first.

I like, I'll remind him of that after. So let's talk about the journey. So you, you find your gap in animals. And you're now doing giraffe.

“So how does that work from a standpoint of funding?”

And we're direction. I know you're doing conservation. I want to really get into how you guys define yourself. But how does that work? Because that's not an easy journey for anybody to pay.

I know you're doing conservation. I want to really get into how you guys define yourself. But how does that work? That's not an easy journey for anybody to pick. It's great to find a great animal but to be able to do it.

It was a long journey as well. So we did for a long time we did it in our spare time. So originally after he finished this research. As I said, I worked different consulting jobs and at the university to make a living. We got married and then we moved to Australia.

Originally to because he had to finish his PhD through the university of Sydney. So we lived in Australia for a few years and we worked. Job's. Yes. I did environmental investments.

He worked for a land management organisation. And we, life was okay. It was good. But we had a kid and we realized we really missed Africa. So we moved back to Kenya and still for other jobs.

But we always did giraffe stuff on the side and our spare time.

So it was literally us in the evening when then in Kenya when the two kids were in bed. With the laptop on our left. Doing some giraffe stuff. Because there was no money anymore. Right.

Our heart was in it. So we kept on going and did little projects. It started collecting DNA samples of giraffe all over Africa. Because we realized there might be something going on. There might be more than one type of giraffe.

And then, yeah, we, in 2009, we first set up GCF. The giraffe conservation foundation registered as an organisation. Because we realized there was, we could get money for little projects. But we needed a home. You couldn't just say please send money off private account.

Right. So we set GCF up and still did it in our spare time until 2014.

The first ever full-time giraffe conservationists in the world.

Which is really cool. So I had two questions that are related. But again, not related.

“So when you were in Sydney, did you, did you get an opportunity to go up into the blue mountains to see all the paricks up there?”

It's so cool. Absolutely. Yeah. It was fascinating. It was interesting to live in a big city.

But we also realized it wasn't really us. So we've been took where we live now. It's a really small town. Yeah. I mean, it's quite a little.

But it's still a small town. And that's what we love. We love the bush. We love going out on weekends camping. City is city life at the heart.

Well, you know what? I think every time I talk to people that are in the animal world. I totally understand that. So the other question I have that's related, but not related. Is it in Kenya?

Where were you and Kenya? Were you guys in the mara? Where were you? We were in Nairobi. Again, yeah, hard life.

It was good for a while. We were much younger. So it was we were much taller and two chaos, I think. Yeah, but it works when the drugs were Julian worked for the AUCN. I did some consultancies for the UN.

We were making a living with young family to young children. Yeah.

“In the end, you have to feed the family.”

Well, when you got to young children to your, you're going to blur all the time. Anyways, today I have three, I had three in diapers at one time. So I'm going to tell you, this is a crazy story. I think I told you, I've spent a lot of time in Africa. It's been probably, well, not probably.

Most of my time, the majority of time. I've been in 14 countries, I think, but Kenya's been a lot of time. I've had a lot of real good friends. But I lived in Cabira for two weeks. Okay.

Yeah, doing some stuff with some kids for HIV positive and stuff like that. That was really great. But yeah, I'd probably, it's got its own charm in some ways. Karen and some of the areas there and all that. But I'd like there, I can't remember the name.

There's a place over there.

Because when I'm there, I always go to this one cafe that has trucked of milkshakes.

I go there for the truck of milkshakes as I remember. Because I usually am out out in, you know, like in, out outer areas. But I've spent a lot of time in Robe too. The elephant conservation thing. And, you know, the elephant sanctuary, I guess it isn't all that.

But let, again, I'm sorry. Let's go to drafts off. So you're in Kenya.

“Now, how you end up in the mid, the mid, the camping.”

Yeah. Yeah. Originally, we may be there. So we really, it was very close to our heart. We really loved them, maybe.

And Kenya was just a bit too, too hectic for us. I think too many people. Now, Robe is a really busy city. Lots of traffic, high climb rate. So we didn't love it.

It was good for a while. And then an opportunity came up to come back to the movie. And we grabbed it. Still not giraffe. Jordan, got a job here.

Working for the Namibian Nature Foundation again in local. Namibian NGO. They looked for a new director and we grabbed the opportunity to move back.

And yeah, then again, I always hit the kids and worked on the side.

And we were getting more and more busy with the giraffe work. Still totally only in our spare time. And then we basically, we started wheelchair after. There was a bit of a fluke. We were sitting one night on the couch.

And it was actually a local conservation group that was bringing out an annual calendar. And they asked us if we wanted to contribute a giraffe picture. And they said, which months should we put it? Is they like a special giraffe month?

And we said now that it really isn't. But they should be. So we started chatting around it. Maybe we had a glass of wine or two. And came up with the idea that we should start wheelchair after.

So there was in 2013, early 2014 men. And we picked eventually the 21st of June. Someone saw us in the northern hemisphere, the longest day. Or here in Africa, the longest night for the tallest animal. Right.

And we threw that concept out to those zoo worlds. And at that time, we had been in touch with quite a few zookeepers. We were all really passionate about giraffe. And they took it. And they made the first world giraffe day in 2014.

But in a big day, and we raised 50,000 US dollars. That was amazing for us. And that's when we decided, okay. Let's give it a plan. I started working full-time unpaid for giraffe conservation foundation for one year.

And then after about six months, Julian joined. And he was the first ever paid person in full-time giraffe conservation.

So yeah, that's how it started. It's a long process.

As I said, long people always say how did you get into it.

There was no like a defining moment where we said, okay, this is what we are doing. It just evolved. And yeah, if you love what you do, and if you're passionate about something, you make it happen. You know, so I'm going to reiterate it. You guys started World giraffe day. It's June 21st, which is the first day of summer here in the US.

The crazy thing is, well, not crazy. So my first child, my son, his due day was June 21st. I wanted it so back as the first day of the summer. But he ended up coming on June 25th. And I can tell you that you probably remember mothers remember better than fathers.

But I remember the exact time he was born. He was born at 625 on 625. But June 21st has a real special day for me for a lot of years. I love summer one. Now I and I love giraffe.

So now even that's more special time.

“And now that and you guys started that, which I think is really cool.”

It's really cool. With World giraffe day, I want to point out because now there's just every day seems to be a day. Right. In 2014, what was it? It was really, it was kind of inspired idea.

Yeah, and it became really big because we were lucky. Again, we just threw it out there and lots of people grabbed it and zoos celebrated. And some zoos said no, we are not doing it. And the keeper said we do it anyway. And I was very at home.

They sold cookies and had garage sale.

So it was really an amazing movement that started.

Well, and by the way, forever, that's going to be your guys. The years and the drafts today is what I think. It's just amazing. I really do think that's cool. [MUSIC]

And we'll be right back.

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Save 10% with promo code for a real podcast covered by most pet insurance. I want to get into two of you guys you're doing. But let's talk a little bit about specifically about drafts. Let's talk about how tall they are and all those things. Everybody, I don't know that I've ever met anybody that didn't like a draft by the way.

Matter of fact, I can tell you one time I was flying through Doha, which is a beautiful airport if you haven't flown through it. But there's a store there, and they're big sign for this store is this big draft. And I took a picture of it because I liked it so much. So there's something about them that they're, they're almost like child like all the time, even when they're grown up. And I've had the opportunity obviously, same in the wild, but there's something special about them.

And obviously, I think you're great. Let's talk about how tall they are and how fast they are and all those other weird questions. Yeah, they're the tallest land mammals there between four and a half, five, some big males almost six meters tall. I'm really bad with feet. I think that's like 16 feet.

About 19 or 20 feet tall, got tallest. It's actually up to 19 feet, I think. So they're very tall, they have obviously very long legs. What I find really fascinating is that a baby giraffe is one meter 80. It's about six feet tall, I believe.

“And people always ask why are baby giraffe so tall?”

If you have seen the legs of a mum to reach the mum to feed, they have to be pretty tall. Oh, yeah, very amazing. Another fascinating and for mothers, very reassuring things, they don't have horns, they have ocicons.

These ocicons are horn-like structures that lie flat during birth and then only stand up within the first couple of days and then fuse with the head.

Giraffe, what else is really important. They have massive hearts because they have to pump a lot of blood, a long way up to their heads. They have a very special valve system in their neck when they drink. That the blood doesn't pull into their heads. So they're pretty engineers when it comes to engineering standpoint.

Because their skin will really stick and protect them from blood pulling on their feet as well. Like a geese too, you know, like a geese too. That's crazy.

“You know, what is I'm going to stay with the heart thing for a second?”

Because before I started doing my homework for this, I had always heard that they had the largest heart of any animal, which is not true.

The matter of fact, when you dig into it, it's 25 pounds and it's two feet long, which is huge. And the reason being is so can pump all the blood up to the brain and all that, but actually the blue whale has the biggest heart in it. So let's, I did three guys that are listening. We're talking 25 pounds, which is a lot. The blue whale is 440 pounds. I've read that. I got all my gosh.

But there's some also thought that the elephants have a bigger heart. I always thought that I'm a big giraffe guy and I told you that, but I'm a big giraffe guy. So I wanted to have the biggest heart. That's just what I want. Yeah, I thought they had begun arts then elephant, but I tend to be corrected. I'm not a physiologist.

So I'm a giraffe conservationist. So when it comes to these details, I rely on the teachers. Doesn't matter. I'm going to share that with the big heart. They have a very thick heart walls because they just have to create the pressure and pump the blood. So that's, I know for sure.

And another fascinating fact is that they have a really long tongue. Fifty centimeters, which when my daughter was young, was the ace of her arm. Eighteen inches, I looked at her. That is pretty long. It's really long.

There's something else I wrote down on a link. I want to see if I might notice here that I was really sure. Oh, so let's talk about the neck vertebrae because, you know, one of the myths out there is that they have more vertebrae than they don't, which is not true.

But the vertebrae is a each vertebrae. I guess the mature animals are 11 inches. I don't know what that is in centimeters. So you and I, I'll do the American eyes one.

You do the meters, but it's basically almost a foot big,

which is, I've seen vertebrae in whales before. They've been worshiping the beach in that,

“which I think they're about the same size.”

It's crazy how big they are. Yeah, so all mammals have, have seven neck vertebrae, and that's what you're off of as well. They just have to be pretty long to, so make up for the long neck.

Yeah. Okay, so the other thing, because you, you had told me that's when we first talked. And I didn't know this in the course now that I've done my homework. I know some of it. There's a total of four species.

I thought there was just one. I didn't realize that. And you can tell by their color, I guess. You, you're the person. I just tell me more about it.

I can't talk about it. I can't talk about it. I can't talk about it. I can't talk about it. Yeah, so this is a,

last week, based on our research, we collected DNA samples of all, most giraffe populations across Africa. We have collected almost 3,000 DNA samples. And they clearly show that there is four different species of giraffe.

They're genetic differences, the split.

They split between 500,000 and 1.5 million years ago.

And the group who did the DNA testing for us, they also work on bears. And as a lay person, I'm also not geneticist. I find it very, as a good example,

they explained to me that the difference between the four different species of giraffe is bigger than the difference between polar bears and brown bears. Wow. And polar bears,

“I think everyone will agree that they're different species.”

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, so that's where, how it started, but then we also looked at morphology. We had a postdoc who scanned the scouts of giraffe in natural history museums and national parks,

anywhere where we could find scouts. So he scanned 550 scouts all over the world, basically, with the 3D scanner and then did some modelling and what scientists do. And it also clearly showed that the difference between the scouts structure

of male giraffe and also female giraffe is significantly different to you can tell the four species apart by looking at the scouts structure. We're looking at pattern at the moment. There is definitely some tendencies, but there's also a lot of variation within pattern.

So every giraffe has a unique pattern. It's just like a human fingerprint.

It just grows. It expands a bit, obviously, as they grow. And the coloration might change a little bit. Seasonally, all over age. But the general pattern remains the same.

And it looks like there is significant differences between the species, but we also see a lot of variation within the species. So you can't show me a picture and say, and I can't, I can give an educated guess, but it can't be a definite answer by a pattern.

One of the things that I was really cute too. And again, I'm going to profess everything, and I generally do this because I get myself, most of my research from the internet. I'm not living with them in doing all of that.

But the way I read it was, is that the children, oftentimes their pattern is similar to the mother. Is that true or is that just internet?

“Because that would be like, my kids look kind of like me, right?”

Yeah. It's a paper out that saw some correlation, but there hasn't been extensive studies. We normally, in the wild, we also know what the mother is.

We never know what the father is.

So that makes it really difficult. Yeah. There has been a paper out where people saw some correlation. We also have a couple of giraffe that we regularly monitor, where we think we see some correlation,

but there has been very limited studies. As with many things of giraffe, a lot of things just have never been studied. So this is one thing I want to talk about too. That brings me up to something.

The heards, by the way, I know that sometimes they come towers, which I think is awesome. I love finding like it's like flamingos or flamboyance. You know, that kind of thing.

“I just think it's, I think it's so cute.”

But the heards generally are the females all hanging together with the babies in that. But the males kind of just cruise around and do their thing. Is that kind of, is that kind of how it works? Yeah, mainly.

So first of all, so we talk about heards from a scientific side.

I, I think giraffe towers is a still standing group, and if they walk, they're actually called a journey, which I really know. A journey, that's another one. I got to write that down. I love stuff like this. I don't want to laugh, I really like that.

Yeah, so females tend to hang out in, it's called scientifically, it's called the Fission Fusion Hood structure. It means they come together, but they also split up again. But there is a tendency that mothers and daughters hang out in the same group, sisters, cousins, as well.

So females tend to stick together. They often have so-called creations where several moms with young calves hang out together, so that they get away sometimes and can feed and piece and quiet, or mothers can totally really like the vet. So they look after each other's calves a little bit.

Whereas males, they normally stay with their moms until they're like two, maybe three years old, and then they either go out on their own or they stay in Bachelor Hoods. So often you see a group of young males and they start fighting a bit for dominance, little bit of sparring.

Yeah, so you, when you see a single giraffe, it's most likely a male,

“but also not always. But yeah, that's what they tend to.”

And females don't want to walk about. I want to get away from these crazy people for a while. So I know that gestation period was 15 months or something like that. Do they only have one baby at a time? And do they have more than one in a lifetime?

Yes, so gestation is 15 months.

And giraffe can basically have one calf after the other.

So if the conditions are right, if there's enough food and they feel safe, they might have a calf every 15 to 20 months. And that is really interesting as well. They can have calves throughout their entire life. People thought there was a paper out a few years ago where someone said,

"Oh, look at that, there's grandmother's looking after their grandchildren." That was actually not true. It was mother's mother's way. Now, for sure, that some of the giraffe we have been following basically all their lives. That we have monitored all their lives and we know that 25, 27 years old. They're still having calves.

Wow. Another fun fact is that no one really knows how old giraffe get in the wild. If you look at literature, it will say 25 years. But that is actually based on data from zoos. Because no one in the wild knows that this giraffe was born on a specific day

and then died of natural causes whenever after. Now that we have this long-term monitoring program here in the Mepia based on when Julian and I initially started to do this catchman study

And some of them are still around.

So we know that they are now over 20, 80 years old. Or even 30 because they were older than that. You know what's weird is, oftentimes when you hear about the length of an animal, the ones that live the longest of the ones in captivity, but you're now finding out that the ones live in the wild are living longer,

which is really cool. That's good to hear. Exactly because that's just what they're made for. It makes personal sense.

I mean, in captivity they're also cared for really well,

giraffe are used to walking long distances. Some giraffe move 60, 70 kilometers. What is that 40 miles a day? They can't move that much in captivity.

“So probably that's really important for them.”

Yeah, so we learn so much more. But I would really love to go back to the four species a little bit because we haven't really brought that any for us. That you're the chef to give me your mail. So yeah, so there's four species of giraffe.

They're the northern giraffe and the southern, the reticulated and the massage giraffe. We should also mention that in total, if you look at all giraffe and Africa together, there's only about 140,000 of them remaining.

That sounds a lot initially, but we all know elephants, I'm travel. We all know elephants are threatened and they really need our support. There is about 400 to 450,000 elephant remaining in Africa. So that means there's one giraffe for every three elephant. So maybe giraffe should also get a little bit of our attention.

Now specifically, we know that there is four different species. So when you then look at the numbers of these giraffe individually, the numbers are quite scary. The northern giraffe is only about 7,000 of them remaining in Africa. So that is not many. So what countries are the northern giraffe in?

The northern giraffe are mainly in West Africa Central Africa into little bit in East Africa. So we are looking at Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, all these countries that are not the safest places to live in. A lot of civil unrest often humanitarian crises, so conservation is not really very high on the list of several of these countries. So yeah, not easy countries to work in, but these giraffe are really the most in travel.

“Sure, I read the massage giraffe, is that the northern giraffe, because that's Kenya, right?”

So is that the same as a different one? Yeah, so the massage giraffe is one of the four, so northern, southern, massage, and reticulated. Kenya is super, super lucky country. They have three of the four species in the country. They have a northern giraffe, a subspecies called Nubian giraffe, then the massage and the reticulated giraffe.

It's interesting because, you know, the massage basically, I mean divided by a river, because the serengeti and the massage are there, that's the same big parks, hypothetically.

I mean geographically, it's a two different countries. And so there's a massage one, but there's not a serengeti. I know this is American thing, but. You know, all name to historically by explorers or artistic name, but we also funny here in Nubia, we have the southern giraffe and the subspecies is the Angolan giraffe. Angola is the country north to us and Angolan giraffe, we're actually extinct in Angola, but they're the numerous here in Nubia.

So it doesn't all make sense with the naming, it's based on historical findings.

“You know what I like when I was reading was that the word giraffe was actually, it was an Arabic word, I think.”

And then the ancient English, there was an ancient English word or medieval English word or something called the camel leopard. Yeah, camel leopard was a name for giraffe at one point, it was a Greek word, which is, I get it sort of, you know, they saw, I know what a camel looks like. He's going to be the scientific name for giraffe, what's giraffe, a Camilla Pedales, which is the camel leopard. But it also means the animal that walks with the. Well, one last thing, and then I want to get into what you guys are doing, what I really thought was interesting.

They're closely related, you know, spread out to cattle to all like these smaller animals are the deer and all that is kind of in the same.

Which I never think about that, it's pretty crazy.

“I mean, it's quite loosely the relationship.”

Right. Yeah, of course. Family, so, but yeah, this is where they all their. Grasus browsers giraffe have browsers so they eat leaves and they're clothing hoofed. Yeah, well, and the other last thing about them specifically, and I want to talk about what you guys are doing.

And some of the difficulty you guys have and how you're able to do this is. They, they say that as they evolved as they were more because they're herbivores. That as they evolved and they got more like in the Savannah areas that the reason one of the reasons or next got so long was so that you get up to get to leaves and eat and do all that kind of stuff too.

I thought it was kind of interesting too.

Yeah. Really, it's, again, some talk about sexual evolution that they, the next, the next grew to for the dominant animals. But yeah, it puts them in a really big advantage because no one else, none, no other animal feeds at the height of a giraffe, even elephants can't reach that height. Yeah. So in some years when other animals are really struggling because there's a lot of competition for food giraffe, just reach higher levels.

And then get away with it. One, one thing I saw, you know, I have to, you can have to go with my American humor all the time because you're just going to, you're just going to have to grin and bear it. So when the males are fighting, one for sexual dominance or whatever, they used to term necking.

“Do you know the American term necking where people are kissing and necking?”

I thought, God, what a great, it's a good name. That would be Tusker time, but there's a different thing. But here, there's a term for when people are kissing. Yeah. It's called necking as well, it's a, you know, term.

But I also, I've done a lot of necking with Tusker trust me. Tusker knows me well when I'm over there. [music] And we'll be right back.

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I want to get into what you guys are doing, which is more important for what you guys are doing. It's the only NGO in the world that concentrates solely on conservation and management in the world. And I guess in Africa and in the world in Africa to protect these animals. So I'm going to talk about what you're doing. I also want to talk about the difficulties because if you haven't been Africa,

every country has its own politics, they're all nuts. You guys have to navigate all that.

“But let's talk about what you guys are doing and let's talk about how you have to navigate.”

Different personalities, the countries and cultures and stuff like that. Yeah, so do you know how the current 21 different African countries? And as you said, each country is different. Has different legislation, has different problems, has different challenges. And different in some areas, just to give you a few examples.

In some countries, you're off only live in national parks and protected areas. In other countries, they live in national parks and in communal areas where they literally share their living space with local people. So that's, there's lots of differences. There's some countries that are really keen on conservation. There's a lot of enthusiasm.

The government is interested in conservation and in other countries. There's so many other problems that conservation really is a bit on the back burner. So we are navigating all these different systems. The threats to giraffe are different in many countries. Overall, the biggest threat to giraffe is habitat loss.

There's just less and less space for these big animals. As I said, they move a lot. They need a lot of space. There's so many people in Africa. We need more space, cities, roads, railways, lines are dissecting habitat.

So there's just less and less space for giraffe to move in.

“Disease, pouching, illegal hunting for bush meat is a problem in some countries.”

But not in others. Again, that is a question of low enforcement. If there's civil unrest in the country, the last thing they're really worried about is protecting their wildlife. So giraffe faced different threats. As I said, there's four different species.

They have different numbers. Some of them are quite numerous. Like the southern giraffe, there's like 68, almost 70,000 of them remaining. So almost half of the remaining giraffe are southern giraffe. But then the northern giraffe, there's only 7,000.

So that also makes it more precarious. We are relatively small organisations still. We are 18 people. We operate out of Namibia, but we have two staff in Kenya as well. We have two based in South Africa. But we work currently in 21 African countries.

So every time there's something happening with giraffe conservation, we are most likely somehow involved. And what we really like to do to get the ball rolling in the country, we start by developing a national giraffe conservation strategy or action plan. Which means we partner with the government and we bring all relevant players into one group.

Literally, we have a big meeting where everyone who has some interest or enrollment in giraffe conservation comes together in one room.

“And we really just sit down and say, okay, what do we know about giraffe?”

Where do they live? What are their strengths? What problems are they facing? And so what do we know about giraffe? What don't we know about giraffe in this setting?

And what really should we know about giraffe? And then we develop together this strategy also to get by in from the government and all other players. We, as the giraffe conservation foundation, normally fund this whole process because we see us as a catalyst. We are a patient about giraffe and it's our job to take other people and governments on this journey with us.

We are not going there to do all the work. We are not doing that to protect giraffe single handedly. We do it with partners, but we see ourselves as the catalyst to just really start this development. So I don't know if you have worked with government agencies in your country. We work with government agencies in 21 African countries.

We are growing there.

And my husband always says he used to have hair when he started this job.

No. It's not much like. All right, I can hear that I'm losing. I just blame it on the government. Yeah.

So yeah, it's a hard process. It can be really, really boring, but it's really important. Because then we have a bit of a roadmap. You know what we want to do if someone comes. If a student comes and says I want to do a project about giraffe, we say we have a list.

And we say, look, this is the questions we want to answer. Pick one.

“If you want to count the ticks on the bum of a giraffe.”

No, we are not interested. That really is not relevant. And we really get everyone involved. And we get a lot of government buying, which is a great starting point. But then we do lots of things.

We do surveys. We count giraffe. Because no one really knows how many giraffe there are.

People always think they're everywhere.

And they're quite difficult to count and you want to do it right. But we do a lot of ground-based surveys where we literally take a photo of every giraffe. We see and we upload it to portal. We have, which is called giraffe spotter. It's a wild book based program that uses artificial intelligence to ID these giraffe.

So in this portal, we now have photos of over 30,000 giraffe. Remember? 140,000 remaining in the wild and 30,000 over 30,000 of them. We know individually. That's pretty awesome.

Yeah. Thank you. And the numbers, it's not only us. We work partners. We have lots of students, government agencies, other NGOs who do the surveys.

But we compile it all and we keep like a finger on the pulse that we know what is going on. I like that same. How do you know if it went piece at a time, right? So I want to ask you so. You've got, let's go with the Nardern giraffe where that's got to smaller numbers.

And the numbers have gone down and a lot of that has to do.

So if I'm going in, so just from an outside or looking in,

then there's a little bit more than people because I've spent a little time looking at, but I don't really know anything. So what do you do? I mean, if habitat is lost, you're educating, obviously, saying, if you do this, you're going to lose a giraffe or whatever.

But what, what all, I mean, this is a big question. So in a broader strokes, if you, if you're trying to protect them,

“are you moving them into areas where they've got more land to graze on?”

Or what, what do they, I mean, how does it work? Again, there's not no blueprint to it. So right. So in some countries, they live in national parks. So there, it's important to work with the government or in this,

there's some NGOs who manage parts where if it can governments, then we work with them to ensure that these giraffe remain safe in the park. We do translate giraffe. We either take giraffe to areas where they have locally gone extinct, but now we know the places safe again.

We do, again, it's a solid, quite easy. Pick up a giraffe and move it. Not that easy. No, no, no, no, no.

We do an assessment first to see is the habitat right.

Is it safe? Are there high chances of success? And if we take all the boxes, are there, if there is people living in close to the park? Or if it's even communal areas like here in Namibia, a lot of giraffe. Literally live next door to people or with people.

So you'd have to get the buy-in of the local people.

“You have to get the buy-in of the government.”

So that all takes a long time. So we do an assessment. And if everything looks good, then we physically move giraffe, which again is not easy. It's quite costly as well.

And we move them into this area. What we normally also do is we put a GPS satellite track on them. That we can monitor their movements afterwards. That we can see where do their moves do their settle in? Well, most importantly do their move at all.

Or do they actually not survive? Which luckily does not happen very often. And because we do our homework. So yeah, this is what we do. We bring them back.

We try to expand their habitat because giraffe in the last 300 years have lost almost 90% of their habitat in Africa. So reclaiming habitat is a really big part of our work. But it's a slow process. It's not something that you come up with today and do tomorrow.

It's often years in the making to move giraffe to junior areas. But for example, in Uganda when we started working in Uganda, there was two national parks that had giraffe. Now there is five. Oh, there is really.

I think I had mentioned I've spent time in Uganda and in all that too. And I've been to the zoo there and stuff like that. We talked about this a little bit when I was there. I was really surprised that there's hardly, they're not in the wild.

They're only in the parks.

And a lot of the locals have never seen wild animals.

Yeah, but that is, I mean, the national parks are large. It's not that they're in tiny areas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, and many African countries just like in many European or also in parts of America.

“Wow, life is restricted to where they can move because there is a lot of people around.”

Who are claiming landfactory culture. Yeah, as we take over the world. So let's talk, one thing we didn't talk about. I know the habitat loss is the bigger thing. But what about how's the climate change that, you know,

obviously some people believe in or don't believe in. But obviously you guys are seeing it on a regular basis because you're out there in the wild. How's that effect in them as well? So we do, we did something. We have some ongoing climate change modeling projects.

And when we do an assessment of to where we want to bring giraffe back to. This climate change modeling habitat modeling is part of it. Because we don't only need to know that the habitat is fine today. We have to know that the habitat has fine also in 20, 30, 50 years. Right.

So there's areas where giraffe live today, where in 20, 30, 50 years they likely won't be living. So well, unless we open, we open fences. They can move free. So yeah, that's an important consideration. But giraffe are very lucky with two aspects.

As I mentioned before, they don't compete for fruit necessarily. If there is large trees, they don't have competition. And they are what I call opportunistic trinkets. When giraffe have water readily open water readily available, they are happily drink quite regularly.

But if there is no water, they are able to just get all the moisture they need from the fruit they eat.

Which I think is super impressive. Looking at the size of the giraffe, they are realizing they do not have to drink. They can just faint and get enough moisture out of their fruit. They often eat like early in the morning here in the Mbio where they really live in a hyper-erid area. Real desert.

It's very limited resources that we have a fog coming in in the morning. So there is due on the leaves so they release their fruit good morning because they know that they can get more water.

And they also might eat different plant species at certain times of the year.

But they can get more moisture from them. I didn't even think about to do. You know, we had mentioned this before. We guys listening to Swahili word for giraffe is Twiga. It's spelled TWIGA, which reminds me of Twig.

“And I think it's so relative to their name because they are up in the trees all the time and doing it.”

You know, Twiga, it's one of my favorite swahili words. Twiga, I put them away as probably my favorite one. But Twiga is pretty good. Put them away, by the way, for you guys listening, it's Zebra. You know, we used it a lot. We have a couple of our larger initiatives. We used it. We have one initiative called Twiga Trecker and one called Twiga Vetu.

Twiga Vetu is swahili for our giraffe. So this is our community based program where we really work with local communities. We do environmental education just to take people on the journey to make sure they love giraffe as much as we do. You know, again, we had this conversation for you guys. So let's say if you find Nairobi, if you're at the airport, you can see giraffe walking right across the street from the airport.

It's a crazy thing ever. And I'm assuming that that's probably an area where habitat loss is really being affected there because Nairobi is just every time I've gone there. Just growing and growing and growing. The airport is adjacent to Nairobi National Park. This is where where the giraffe lives and then they have an area adjacent to that which used to be open landscapes.

But there's a lot of land being sold up. So there's lots of fencing and just again, as we said, habitat loss less and less space for animals to move freely.

“So we are working a lot there trying to figure out how many giraffe are they, how do they move?”

So we put GPS satellite tags on them to really analyze their movements and see which kind of fences do really impact them. There's a major highway going through. So there's a lot of road kills there as well. So yeah, just learning which corridors they use that we can then work with the government and local NGOs and try and protect certain corridors to just allow movement in some area settings. Can you see talking about corridors and streets in Los Angeles.

There's an area where the mountains are and there's a lot of wildlife there. There's still mountain lines and that and they built a way for the animals.

They built basically because they're on overpass that's all wild and they're they're reusing them from almost immediately once they started doing that which I think is.

Then being a little bit aware of protecting the wildlife even in an area like Los Angeles and I know they don't have I've been on the road here. I know that's not going to probably happen, but that kind of stuff there. No, it is and Kenya now when they're just building some major highways and we are sharing all the movement data we have. I don't care if I'm going to do that. I don't care if I'm going to do that. I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that, I don't care if I'm going to do that.

But for that we just really need this wildlife movement. So we have tagged over 600, 700 giraffe all over Africa with GPS satellite tags to learn more about their movements to see. How do they use their habitat? Do they move a lot? Is there certain areas they prefer? That really helps us to learn more and we also see again talking about the four species. We see difference in movements between the four species.

“I was thinking about talking about this. The world is really worried about AI right now, obviously, for important reasons, but I was thinking about you've got DNA testing now.”

You got AI to be able to identify the different animals based on AI, which I think, when you said that, that's really cool. And then we got to GPS stuff too, and you know, our the modern technology as much as humans have best intentions all the time, I don't think any of that technology was designed specifically to protect animals.

Now, absolutely, and we are using a lot, I mean, for a relatively small conservation organization based in Africa, so people always think we're still quite simple, but we use a lot of modern technology, we have a really strong conservation tech team.

“We access a lot of data, we use AI to analyse camera trip data as well. We have so much data, which is pretty amazing for the small conservation organization, but we pride ourselves that all our decisions are based on the latest available science.”

So we don't just collect the data, we actually use it, we use it ourselves, but we're also happy we share it with students, universities, we have lots of projects that we are supporting where people just approach us and say, look, we are doing the study and we are looking for data, for example, there was a, there was a wildlife study that was, they looked at animal movements during the first COVID lockdown compared to a year before.

So we contribute with the draft data for that study. So we are sharing data with lots of people.

We have, every year we have about 15 to 20 scientific publications that one of our team has involved in, or that we provide the data for, so we are quite prolific when it comes to science as well, even though our focus maybe is proportional on the ground. Okay, so I'm going to say it differently, you're small but mighty, but you know the other thing that is, you know, in talking with you even more now, I just think it's amazing that these two knuckleheads, one from Germany and one from Australia, meet in Africa, create world draft day, and now you're doing all these other things that, can you, I mean obviously you can't, can you prior to kids,

then two little kids and, you know, from Australia to Nairobi to back to Namibia, I said it right this time.

And look what you've done, it's pretty, it's pretty impressive, it really is. And you know, you're just, you're just getting started thing, even though you're small, but mighty, you're going to be even more mighty or something, time goes on. But one of the things that... When you put it like that, it sounds impressive, you're right, but it's really impressive. Yeah, when you put it, it's just, I mean, I always say I didn't bring up one day and said I want to become a draft conservationist of living in Namibia and work in 21 African countries that was never the plan, it just evolved and then you end up and it just happens.

“And yeah, but sometimes I think we actually, just this morning we were talking about and said what we have really bad in is promoting ourselves and getting ourselves from the back.”

I'll do it for you. I'll do that for you. But you know what, it's, it is impressive and you're doing so many different things, but what most people don't realize and is even though you're small but mighty, but you know, a smaller car needs gasoline and you guys need funding.

So let's talk about how people can help you. I'm, I'm just wondering, do one, what do you say our, our Twiga? What was, what was the word Twiga, what was the word for our, and swahili, our Twiga?

Twiga, right to you, ETA, ETA, you, ETA, you, Twiga, way to means our job. We get way too. So is that one where people can adopt, like almost, you know, some people will find it to raft it to their supporting and all that. I mean, what are all your programs for people can help help you guys. And we're going to, and I want you to tell everybody to find you and for everybody's listening, I say this all the time, all this will be in the description we're recording right now, but it will be in there when this comes out.

“So everybody how to find you, how they can help because Twiga is a really important and remember they're your Twiga, too, not just ours, you're your Twiga, too. So what can they do and let's go into it?”

So we have a website giraffeconservation.org, and they can donate, which is, would be absolutely amazing, because as we said, it all costs money not only, do we have a lot of project costs, everything we do, putting GPS, satellite tags on it, moving giraffe, counting giraffe, it all costs money, and we have a small but very dedicated team, and they all like to be paid at the end of the month, so it just really adds up. But we are very effective and efficient with our money, I think, so we are really proud ourselves, that we have very low overheads, we don't spend lots of money on marketing, we rather do a podcast interview and hope that some of you can.

So that really supports us, and it also we always say you, we see ourselves as a voice for giraffe and by wearing a giraffe t-shirts, you can also become a voice for giraffe, so please also just, if you don't can't donate, don't worry, just tell your friends and your family about the pride of giraffe, remember there's only one giraffe for every three ever, and remaining in Africa, so they really, really need our help. I always think it would be really, really sad, if such an iconic symbol of Africa that everyone loves, as you said, I know one person who doesn't like giraffe, everyone normally loves giraffe, and it would be such a shame, if we would lose even one of the four species.

They would be horrible, and they're so peaceful, they do make sounds, but they don't make a lot of sound, they're just as quiet, they're something elegant about them, I guess it's a good word, the way they walk, and the way they stand, I mean, I, you know, I want to believe that the biggest heart, regardless of the stupid blue whale, anyways. So, I'm the president in our lives, I mean, which all he does not have a junk suit with a giraffe on it, or a little giraffe, fluffy toy, so there's so much part of our cultures, not only in Africa, but all over the world, so I think, yeah, they're one of the most charismatic animals and iconic, definitely.

“Because, you know, for you guys listening, I wrote a children's book that was actually about a giraffe in a fly, so that's a big space for meaning to me.”

Okay, so we're got that part now where we're going to, I'm going to let you tell the joke, because I tell everybody all the time, you know, even when I asked the guests to tell the joke, they cringe to go, oh man, I don't want to sell some silly joke, but, and oftentimes they don't want to, and I do it, but as I always say, if you want to be on the show, you've got grandkids, nieces, nephews, or you just want to be on the show.

So, you can email me at mcofria.com and I'll put you on gladly.

I mean, I don't stuff about doing shit out great, but she's going to be, she's going to be part of the team to do this, because she's small and mighty. But I'm going to let her tell the joke, but again, please email me, I'd love to have guests on it.

“I think it's really close, especially when kids are out in tone jokes. So, stuff, it's all your turn to say, there's wonderful draft, yeah. She's shaking right guys.”

I don't screw it up now. So, why is it so hard for a giraffe to say they're sorry? Why is it so hard for a giraffe to say they're sorry? I don't know, why? Because it takes a long time for them to swallow their pride. Oh, that's a good one, see? You did a good job, perfect. I mentioned all my draft jokes. I picked this one.

I like it. I like it a lot. You know, as I say, I always look about the mind, just as a backup, because oftentimes people want to do it, but that was a good one.

Long time for this swallow their pride. You know, one of the things before I let you go, I was thinking, you know, one of the cool things about their heart. You know, to be able to pump their blood all the way up to their head is when they go to drink water, because if anybody that's listening, when you go upside down, you blood rushes to your head. And they're designed where they can do that so they don't faint, which I think it's just such a, they're just the so well designed cool thing. But anyways, I want to end it with that.

Well, I think I just add one thing there. Sure. They are called these are, that is actually a real slow, because a giraffe's neck is shorter than their legs.

“So that's why they're so awkward when they drink. They always see a giraffe drink. They always have to display their legs, well, they have to bend them, and it puts them in a really vulnerable position.”

But it's because they make us too short, as long as it is, it's still too short.

I never thought about it because I've seen them in the wild with their legs are really wide apart. I never thought about it. That's so cool. That's a great way to end.

So most importantly, for you, I just want to thank you so much for doing this stuff. You know, we're in a completely different time zone. You're doing this. I know you're busy. You guys are doing great things. Talking knuckle has like me. I know it's a waste of time sometimes, but I'd love to have hearing your story.

No, thanks for having me. It was great. I obviously love talking about giraffe. My work so much. It wasn't too hard to convince me.

“As you've learned with me, I love talking and I always love finding new things. But lastly, everybody else out there this listening without you guys listening. I don't get great gas like stuff today.”

So please pass the word on the more followers, listeners and all that other stuff like do all that crazy stuff and whatever platform you.

You're listening from and tell people about this because one is it's great for us to get that out there.

“But also, that message needs to get out there. When you've got animals that are threatened and all that the more you know, even more small and mighty you'll be.”

But anyways, everybody else out there, thank you so much for listening for real.

That will close this episode for real with your host Mark Kyle. For previous and future episodes for real, listen via all major podcasts for your sites. [Music]