ENDANGERED: Saving the Eastern Bongo
Friday October 27 2017
Bongo at Mt Kenya Wildlife Conservancy. Establishment of ranches and other wildlife farms would help reduce the increasing number of animals living in protected areas. PHOTO | COURTESY OF MKWC
In August, tourists in the Aberdares range of central Kenya saw a large male bongo antelope cross the road and disappear into the forest before anyone could take a photograph.
It has become extremely rare to see bongo in the wild, and unless conservation efforts are intensified, the antelope could soon be extinct.
Handsome, reclusive and the largest African forest antelope, the Eastern Mountain Bongo is found only in Kenya and is critically endangered.
It is thought that there are only about 100 living in the high-altitude forests of Mt Kenya, the Aberdares and parts of the Mau forest complex.
“Bongo historically inhabited the Cherangani Hills and wider areas of the Mau Forest,” said Colin Church, a member of the Bongo National Task Force of Kenya. The Bongo receives little national or international coverage compared with elephants, rhinos and lions.
Over the past 40 years, bongo have fallen victim to bush meat hunting, disease and loss of habitat.
At the Mt Kenya Wildlife Conservancy, some 72 bongo live in a captive breeding environment. The conservancy works together with the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya Forestry Service.
Four bongo calves were born in the conservancy this year.
“The births have renewed hope for the survival of the bongo, whose population in the wild is below the threshold of 250 mature individuals required to make a genetically stable population,” said Donald Bunge, the conservancy manager.
The solution to increased numbers could lie overseas. The Eastern Mountain Bongo international stud book indicates that around 750 bongos live in zoos and parks in Europe, the US, Australia and the Middle East.
Some 200 captive bongos in the US are thought to be ideal stock for translocation because they are de-habituated to humans.
“They’re in very healthy condition and better able to make the transition into the forests,” Church said.
In 2003, a group of bongos was shipped from the US to the conservancy, but they eventually succumbed to theileria, a tick-borne disease. However, some of their offspring survived.
The Bongo Surveillance Programme monitors and gathers data in Mt Kenya, the Aberdares, and the Mau forest complex. Church says, “If this initiative is further developed, communities will provide essential security and supervision oversight for the bongo.”