Photo by amivitale | Giraffe browse in the Singita Grumeti Reserves, a conservatory adjacent to Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The male giraffe (left) has a snare around his neck. Snares are traps, most often made of wire, set by poachers to catch animals for the illegal bushmeat trade. While many animals caught in snares are consumed for food, others will be left to rot or be so severely wounded that they cannot feed or hunt, drying as a result. Across Africa, giraffe populations dropped nearly 40 percent in three decades, a decline thought to be linked to habitat loss and fragmentation as well as poaching, including animals killed by snares. But giraffe numbers may be rebounding. An analysis of survey data from across the continent suggests the total giraffe population is now around 117,000, approximately 20 percent higher than in 2015, when the last major survey was published. The increase can be attributed to population growth in some areas but also to more accurate census ...