Giraffes and Zebras Face Top Threat: Hunting

It's no secret that elephants and rhinoceroses are in trouble, poached for body parts and meat that are sold worldwide. But a new study published today in the online journal Science Advances finds that other large plant-eaters, including zebras and gorillas, are in the same sinking boat.Hunting these animals for their meat—either for subsistence or for sale—is a major threat, along with poaching, to the world's largest herbivores, the researchers report. (Learn why 2014 was a record year for poaching in South Africa.) Habitat loss from human activities like agriculture and construction, and competition from livestock, round out the top four threats facing these animals.In addition to their appeal for safari tourists and hunters, herbivores play crucial roles in their respective environments, according to the study.

As browsers, they reduce the amount of vegetation that could spark and fuel wildfires. They can disperse large seeds in their dung over greater distances than their smaller cousins, helping to vary a landscape’s trees and plants. And they themselves provide food for carnivores, such as lions.

Ecologist and lead author of the study William Ripple, at Oregon State University in Corvallis, discusses how our appetite for these animals is destroying some of the most spectacular symbols of Earth's wildest places. We thought the large carnivores, as a group, would be more threatened than the large herbivores just because the large carnivores are more persecuted.