CANBERRA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The birth of a giraffe calf at Australia's National Zoo has been described as a boost to conservation efforts for the species, state media reported.
Mkali in September became the fifth giraffe born to the same parents as part of a species management breeding program at Canberra's National Zoo and Aquarium.
Under the breeding program, which is coordinated by the Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia (ZAA), over 100 select species are being bred at sites across Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
Sophie Dentrinos, wildlife supervisor at the National Zoo and Aquarium, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Saturday that the giraffe breeding program was helping boost genetic diversity in captivity.
"That breeding program is here to make sure that we're maintaining the best genetic diversity we can for giraffes, and ensuring we've got that healthy population in zoos should anything happen to them out in the wild," she said.
"They are suffering a silent extinction, with about a 30 percent decline in numbers over the last couple of decades."
According to the Namibia-based Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GFC), there are approximately 117,000 wild giraffes left in Africa, down from more than 155,000 in the 1980s.
Dentrinos said the decline was particularly concerning because of the 2016 discovery by researchers from the GCF and Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Germany that there are multiple different species of giraffe.
"There are four species of giraffes that we now know exist, as opposed to one," she told the ABC.
"We thought for a long time all giraffes were the same, but we now know they're all distinctly genetically different, and then once you start breaking them down into different sub-species their numbers become quite low." ■