Pioneer Giraffe Researcher Comments on IUCN Red List Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – On 8 December 2016, newspapers across the world announced that the giraffe is at risk of extinction. As a result of illegal hunting and loss of habitat, the giraffe population has shrunk by forty percent over the past three decades, and the mammals are now categorized as a “vulnerable” species. As reported by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, there are now about 97,600 giraffe remaining.

“You can say that all giraffe researchers knew that the giraffe were in trouble, but this makes it final,” says Anne Innis Dagg, author of Smitten by Giraffe. “One of the reasons is that people in north east Africa have little food and live in desperate conditions, so giraffe will probably still be killed and their bodies taken by truck to such areas where people pay for the meat… some populations/subspecies of giraffe are increasing in the south of Africa, but they don’t make up for the many being killed in the north and north-east.”

Related Links:
NPR
New York Times
The Toronto Star
Globe and Mail
IUCN

To read more about Anne Innis Dagg’s life and her research on these amazing creatures, click here or see below:

Smitten by Giraffe
My Life as a Citizen Scientist

By Anne Innis Dagg

“In this plainspoken memoir, Canadian zoologist chronicles her unusual life as a ‘citizen scientist’ and the deeply ingrained sexism she experienced in academia. Rather than quietly giving up, Dagg chose to advocate for other women in academia and continue her own work as an independent scientist, doing research without academic affiliation or support. Dagg’s passionate engagement with the world shines through in all the experiences she recounts.” Publishers Weekly

When Anne Innis saw her first giraffe at the age of three, she was smitten. She knew she had to learn more about this marvelous animal. Twenty years later, now a trained zoologist, she set off alone to Africa to study the behaviour of giraffe in the wild. Subsequently, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey would be driven by a similar devotion to study the behaviour of wild apes. In Smitten by Giraffe, the noted feminist reflects on her scientific work as well as the leading role she has played in numerous activist campaigns.

On returning home to Canada, Anne married physicist Ian Dagg, had three children, published a number of scientific papers, taught at several local universities, and in 1967 earned her PhD in biology at the University of Waterloo. Dagg was continually frustrated in her efforts to secure a position as a tenured professor despite her many publications and exemplary teaching record. Finally she opted instead to pursue her research as an independent “citizen scientist,” while working part-time as an academic advisor. Dagg would spend many years fighting against the marginalization of women in the arts and sciences.

Boldly documenting widespread sexism in universities while also discussing Dagg’s involvement with important zoological topics such as homosexuality, infanticide, sociobiology, and taxonomy, Smitten by Giraffe offers an inside perspective on the workings of scientific research and debate, the history of academia, and the rise of second-wave feminism.

Anne Innis Dagg is senior academic advisor in the Independent Studies Program at the University of Waterloo.

Read more about Smitten by Giraffe