Barbara V Evers

This Sunday is World Giraffe Day! With the giraffe population experiencing a sharp decline, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) established this day to focus the world's attention on the giraffe. In 1999, there were 140,000 giraffes.  Today, there are approximately 80,000. If you break these numbers down into the nine subspecies of giraffes, the data is staggering. The table below shares the approximate population of each subspecies.  Please notice that two subspecies, West African and Nubian, have less than 1000 representative giraffes. List of (sub)species: Angolan giraffe (G. c. angolensis)              < 20,000 Kordofan giraffe (G. c. antiquorum)           < 3,000 Masai giraffe (G. c. tippelschirchi)             < 37,000 Nubian giraffe ( G. c. camelopardalis )         < 650 Reticulated giraffe (G. c. reticulata)           < 4,700 Rothschild's giraffe (G. c. rothschildi)        < 1,100 South African giraffe (G. c. giraffa

Image courtesy of kahunaspix at freedigitalphotos.net A protagonist must change in significant ways between the beginning and ending of a novel. Good writing follows this rule, otherwise, most of the books you read would bore you.  How the character changes is up to the writer.  The character can improve, become stronger, learn to stand on his own two feet.  She can turn bad, really bad, and hurt lots of people. Often writers create characters who become leaders due to the circumstances (ie the conflict) they face. In order to develop them into effective leaders, we can look at the five best practices of a leader as identified by Jim Kousez and Barry Posner .  Based on extensive research focused around good leadership, Kousez and Posner revealed specific characteristics all effective leaders exhibit. Non-writers, take note! This information is useful in your daily lives, especially if you are in management or hope to be some day, so please keep reading. Model the Way Maybe