> Two subspecies, the West African giraffe and the Rothschild giraffe, have been classified as endangered, as wild populations of each of them number in the hundreds.
And also, to call Marty out on not reading the article, the first paragraph of TFA makes it clear and obvious that the article agrees with my interpretation and knew it's headline was factually incorrect, but chose sensationalism anyway:
>announced yesterday that it was moving the giraffe from a species of Least Concern to Vulnerable status in its Red List of Threatened Species report. That means the animal faces extinction in the wild in the medium-term future if nothing is done to minimize the threats to its life or habitat. The next steps are endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild and extinct.
My name isn't Marty and suggesting people haven't read the article is explicitly mentioned as something to avoid in this site's guidelines.
I think a good faith reading of the article (and my earlier comment) would suggest that the author and/or editor are (as other comments have suggested) using "endangered" as shorthand for "will go extinct soon if no action is taken".
I personally don't think the difference between "Vulnerable" and "Endangered" is as significant as the difference betweeen "Least Concern" and "Vulnerable". From the IUCN's 2016 assessment (http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/9194/0):
> Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is assessed as Vulnerable under criterion A2 due to an observed, past (and ongoing) population decline of 36-40% over three generations (30 years, 1985-2015). The factors causing this decline (levels of exploitation and decline in area of occupancy and habitat quality) have not ceased and may not be reversible throughout the species’ range.
I'd agree that it's in a non-technical way. Most people only think of "the endangered species list". Colloquially, "Not on" would be on Least Concern (which is every species that's not on anything higher), and anything higher than (including Vulnerable) that would be "on the list". The paragraph your parent quotes further explains the details as to what specifically was happened, which also educates people that what they may believe is a binary state (on/off the list) is actually more granular than that.
Edit to add: looks like there's a step between Least Concern and Vulnerable: Near-threatened. Also, the definition of Vulnerable is "faces a high risk of endangerment in the medium term."
> Two subspecies, the West African giraffe and the Rothschild giraffe, have been classified as endangered, as wild populations of each of them number in the hundreds.