There is one species of giraffe out there that is considered to be endangered at this point in time. It is called the Nigerian Giraffe but is commonly referred to as the West African Giraffe. However there aren’t too many serious efforts out there to protect it. When you consider the long list of animals out there that are desperately at low numbers then the needs of this one tends to get pushed aside.
While they don’t have to worry too much out there in the wild about predators as adults, only about ¼ of their offspring make it to maturity. This is due to lions and other predators seeing them as easy targets. That combined with the fact that they have a very long gestation period of more than a year means that should their numbers dip dramatically it would be very difficult to get them to increase.
Giraffes can successfully live in the wild for about 20 to 25 years with the right conditions. A common question that people have is due giraffes sleep. They do but that time is very small. They do so only about 2 hours per day but sleep for stretches of about 10 minutes at a time. They almost always remain in an upright position though with the exception of the weak and the very young.