Giraffes, long favored by hunters for their compelling spots and long limbs, are one step closer to obtaining federal protections that would likely deter international hunting.

A Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) notice posted Thursday found that animal rights groups who petitioned for Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for the giraffe “present substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned actions may be warranted.”

The federal government now has 12 months to decide whether to list giraffes under the ESA.

The ruling marks the first step toward listing the animal as threatened or endangered under the ESA and triggers a review of the species to determine how threatened the animal is in the wild.

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Giraffes are commonly found throughout Africa, but their numbers have dropped in recent years by nearly 40 percent according to the Giraffe Conservation Fund. Experts largely blame an expanding human habitat as the main source of the species demise.

There are fewer than 100,000 giraffes left in Africa, fewer than the number of elephants, according to conservationists.

The ruling comes after various wildlife groups petitioned the federal government in April 2017 to include the giraffe under the ESA as at least a threatened species.

They argued that the species was “in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.” Four of the groups later sued the Trump administration in 2018 to force a response on the petition for the giraffe, which they argued the FWS failed to do within its 90-day deadline.

Wildlife groups cheered Thursday’s ruling as a first step in the right direction to provide protections to the animal.

“This is a big step toward protecting giraffes from the growing use of their bones by U.S. gun and knife makers,” said Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s disgusting that it took a lawsuit to prompt the Trump administration to act. Saving everyone’s favorite long-necked animal from extinction should have been the easiest call in the world.”

The world’s longest necked mammal is a prized possession for many big-game hunters who often spend tens of thousands of dollars on African hunting trips to track and shoot the animal. A listing of the giraffe under the ESA could make it harder for U.S. hunters to bring back the pelts, bones and various body parts of any giraffe killed abroad — a typical deterrent for hunters.

The market for giraffe trophies is big in the U.S., according to numbers from the Center for Biological Diversity. More than 21,400 bone carvings, 3,000 skin pieces and 3,700 hunting trophies were imported over the past decade, the group said.

The Humane Society, a petitioner in the case, found in an investigation last fall that more than 40,000 giraffe parts were imported to the U.S. between 2006 and 2015.