Animal behaviour
Having companionship might give sociable giraffe cows better access to food.
Humans are not the only animals who can pay a price for being alone. Researchers have found that solitary giraffes are less likely to survive than gregarious ones.
For 5 years, Monica Bond at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and her colleagues tracked the social networks of more than 500 female Masai giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) in Tanzania. Unlike males, female Masai giraffes tend to form enduring bonds with others of their sex.
The researchers found that female giraffes that spent their time with other females had a higher chance of survival than more socially isolated individuals. That’s probably because social bonds help giraffes to find food and rear young.
Mothers with calves tended to spend time near human settlements centred on livestock grazing. These mothers had weaker social ties with other females than did giraffes living farther from those settlements, but this didn’t affect their survival — possibly because having human neighbours warded off lions and other animals that prey on calves. Female giraffes might face a trade-off between this strategy and close social bonds, the researchers say.