Fitting a head harness requires a coordinated team effort between veterinarians and wildlife experts skilled at carefully herding and immobilising giraffes in the veld.Credit: Nico Smit

Lire en français

I designed the first head harness for giraffes that securely holds tracking and monitoring devices. Made from synthetic leather, it ties snugly around a giraffe’s lower jaw and horns in a design that works better than trying to put collars around their necks, horns or legs.

I am a professor in Wildlife Science at the University of the Free State (UFS), South Africa. My research team and collaborators use data collected via the headgear to better understand the daily habits of giraffes, and where they roam and feed in large Southern African nature reserves.

Francois Deacon.Credit: Nico Smit

We track the size of their home ranges, which trees are eaten in each season, and the giraffes’ interaction with other animals. Our spatial ecology studies also delve into how climatic conditions such as daily and seasonal temperatures, humidity and air pressure influence their movements. We compare such data with the resources available in a particular reserve, and explore differences in behaviour between males and females. The ultimate goal is to protect their natural environment so that giraffes can thrive.

I believe that science is a team effort. I conceptualised the headgear during my PhD studies into spatial ecology in the early 2010s at UFS. Africa Wildlife Tracking now manufactures them. Fitting one requires the coordinated effort of veterinarians and wildlife experts skilled at herding and immobilising giraffes in the veld, as the bulls in particular are very sensitive to tranquilizers.

Head harnesses such as this can safely hold tracking and monitoring devices.Credit: Nico Smit
In March 2023 my research group and our European collaborators added cameras and voice recorders called ‘audiomoths’ to the harnesses, which led to our discovery that giraffes close their nostrils to keep insects at bay while they strip leaves off trees.

Preliminary findings from our audio data indicate that wild giraffe communicate using sounds that are too low for humans to hear. Studies on zoo animals by my collaborator, Anton Boatic, previously showed that giraffes audibly hum.

My research team also studies the sex steroids and blood circulation system of giraffes, and increasingly the spatial ecology and landscape use of other African wildlife such as elephants, leopards, rhinoceros and pangolins.