Kenyan Homecoming for Rare Bongo Antelope

by Jennifer Dolphin

14 female and four male bongo antelopes born in the US were transported to their ancestral home on Mount Kenya on January 30 to begin a new generation of this endangered species.

The relocation is part of the Mountain Bongo Repatriation Project sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund. The bongo antelopes are to be bred in an effort to repopulate the wilderness. Don Hunt and the late William Holden, poachers who turned to conservation to prevent the extinction of the Mount Kenya antelope population in the late 1960s, are responsible for the initiative.

Their project began four decades ago when they founded the Mount Kenya Game Ranch in Nanyuki under the auspices of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation.

Between 1966 and 1975, Hunt and Holden sent twenty bongo antelopes overseas to participate in a breeding program.

"We didn't know what a great job the zoologists were going to do. Now there are over 400 bongo in the United States," said Hunt. Lauding the safe shipment of the antelopes, he added: "Today was the greatest day of my life. We've been dreaming of this for 35 years and it went off without a hitch."

Eighteen descendants of the original breeding pairs, taken from 13 zoos and wildlife parks in the United States and Canada, completed the 40-hour journey across the Atlantic from Jacksonville, Florida to Nairobi, Kenya.

The antelopes were specifically selected for their genetic compatibility and spent 3 months acclimating at the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation of Florida before taking the trip.

The bongo were released from their shipping containers into three 40-hectare corrals at the Mount Kenya Game Ranch. Eventually they will be moved into a 100-acre enclosure, but they do not have the survival skills to return to the wild.

They will instead comprise a breeding group of 100 that is expected to produce 40-50 young each year. The offspring will ultimately be freed.

The bongo are the first of 60 to be sent in three consignments over three years, subject to funding.

The goal of the project is to increase the number of bongo in the wild four-fold over the next ten years.

Bongo stand at five feet five inches tall and weigh 500-700 pounds. They are recognizable by their distinctive red coats with fine white stripes, black faces and long spiral horns.

Mount Kenya National Park chief warden William Woodley explained that bongo are vulnerable to extinction due to a range of environmental stresses.

"Apart from professional poaching and rinderpest, other diseases claimed a great number of the bongos," Woodley said.

"Poachers from all over the world wanted the animal's trophies - horns, game meat and skin, mostly along the slopes of Mount Kenya and Abardares forests in central Kenya and Cherangani ranges in the Rift Valley Province," he explained.

The United Nations Development Fund estimates that fewer than 100 bongo antelopes have survived under these conditions.

The entire central Kenyan highlands have less than several dozen wild mountain bongo left, and they disappeared completely from the slopes of Mount Kenya in 1994.

Local communities will now take part in an awareness program to encourage cooperation in protecting the species.

If the repopulation program is successful, economic benefits are expected to flow from tourism and development.

Texan zoologist Ron Surratt, who was instrumental in the repatriation project, also believes the scheme is an example of the way zoos can be involved in the conservation and preservation of species.

He commented: "It is great to have people come and see the animals, but if you can not ever put them back, it is not complete. When you do this and put something back, that is what makes it so grand."

© 2004 Animal News Center, Inc.