The giraffes had also stumbled upon a peaceful region with enough food to sustain them, and a population that mostly left them alone.
Today, they criss-cross the land in harmony with turbaned nomads in worn flip-flops shepherding camels and sheep.
Drawn to freshly growing vegetation that sprouts during the rainy season, the giraffes can be seen in herds of 10 or 15, wrapping 45cm black tongues around thorny acacia trees and combretum bush.
They graze within eyesight of farmers living in thatched dome huts, sometimes crossing through their bean and millet fields.
They are so used to humans, tourists can walk virtually right up to them.
“It’s quite special in Niger how habituated they’ve become,” Fennessy said. “You don’t normally find giraffes living so close to villagers.”
LAND
As the herds grow, some question how much the land can support.
The animals have been exploring new zones close to the border with Mali. In 2007, two crossed into Nigeria, and never returned.
“When they go away from this zone, it’s a big risk, they can be hunted easily,” Suraud said. “The population may be growing, but they’re still very threatened.”
The biggest hazard: habitat loss.
On a recent day, Salifou Mamoudou, an Environment Ministry official, spotted a turbaned man raking away vegetation from a dirt field. He told the man he was breaking the law; the man said he was only plowing a family plot — legally.
Mamoudou shrugged and moved on.
Villagers relentlessly cut down dead wood to sell, he said. And in an effort to make way for crops, they cut down vegetation that the giraffes eat. That’s technically illegal, but there is almost no authority around to stop them.
“If we let them, they’ll cut trees all the way up to the road,” Mamadou said, waving a hand toward the highway, several kilometers away. “If there is no habitat, there will be no giraffes.”
NOT GOOD FOR THEM
In the early morning dusk, a family of five giraffes is feeding on bubbles of vegetation freshened by recent rain.
It is a peaceful, primordial scene.
Mounkaila, the guide, takes a drag off a cigarette and walks casually toward them. He is just a few meters away, dwarfed by animals nearly three times his height.
Mounkaila rattles off some facts, not bothering to keep his voice down. The gentle creatures eye him, but don’t seem to mind. A step closer, and they will slowly walk away.
They can grow up to 6m tall, he says. They can eat 30kg to 40kg per day, live an average of 25 years, and are able to go without water for weeks, needing less than camels.
Amid a clutch of treetops in the opposite direction, the heads of another pair poke out.
Mounkaila sweeps his shriveled hand across the landscape, toward a red and white cellphone tower rising not far away above the greenery.
“It wasn’t always like this,” the 50-year-old says, digging his flip-flops into the orange soil. “When I was a boy, the giraffes were far more numerous, but they were harder to see.”
There used to be enough vegetation to conceal them, he said, but the bush and forests are disappearing. And with nowhere to hide, the animals are forced to come out in search of food.
“They’re easier to spot,” Mounkaila said. “But that’s good for us, not them.”
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