From the Wikipedia article you mentioned:
> 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.
> 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.
>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.
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."
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.