Next week history will be made in Niger, West Africa when eight of the highly endangered West African Giraffe that roam there will be fitted with the very latest specifically-designed GPS satellite collars.  The collars will enable resident research scientist  Jean-Patrick Suraud  (ASGN) and his team to monitor and study more closely the  range over which these amazing animals roam.  Specific data can be downloaded every hour from the collars, if necessary,  in order to track all movements and,  over time this will give the research team a better understanding of habitat need,  enabling them to put measures in place to avoid human conflict.

Good news on the Giraffe front! Researchers from the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) — www.giraffeconservation.org for those who share my fascination with these animals — report that there has been a dramatic increase in the population of the highly endangered West African race of the Giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis peralta. In historical times, this race ranged from the shores of the Atlantic in Senegal to the west bank of the White Nile, but because of habitat destruction, hunting and competition with domestic livestock, their numbers decreased dramatically. By 1996, the herds of thousands had been reduced to a tiny remnant population of just 50 near Niamey, the capital of Niger. Last month, the GCF announced that the population has quadrupled, numbering some 200 animals and still increasing. Good news indeed, but what does this have to do with Egypt?

A crisp African dawn is breaking overhead, and Zibo Mounkaila is on the back of a pickup truck bounding across a sparse landscape of rocky orange soil. The tallest animals on earth are here, the guide says, somewhere amid the scant green bush on one side, and the thatched dome villages on the other.

They're here, but by all accounts, they shouldn't be.

A hundred years ago, West Africa's last giraffes numbered in the thousands and their habitat stretched from Senegal's Atlantic Ocean coast to Chad, in the heart of the continent. By the dawn of the 21st century, their world had shrunk to a tiny zone southeast of the capital, Niamey, stretching barely 150 miles (240 kilometers) long. The numbers of the Western subspecies dwindled so low that in 1996, they numbered a mere 50.

Instead of disappearing as many feared, though, the giraffes have bounced miraculously back from the brink of extinction, swelling to more than 200 today. It's an unlikely boon experts credit to a combination of concerned conservationists, a government keen for revenue, and a rare harmony with villagers who have accepted their presence — for now.