To survive, antelopes rely on their ability to spot danger and to make a rapid escape. This defense system enables them to evade most wildlife predators, but it offers only partial protection from human hunters interested in antelope hide, horn, or meat, and no protection at all from changes to their habitat.
Antelope Conservation Status
In recorded history the only antelope to become extinct is the South African blue buck, which disappeared around 1800. Since then, however, most species of antelopes have suffered a fall in numbers, and some have come perilously close to disappearing. Foremost among the threatened species are the addax, scimitar-horned oryx, and Arabian oryx, all of which are hunted for their horns.
These three species live in dry places and deserts devoid of large vegetation, where hunters in motor vehicles find them easy to chase. After several decades of motorized hunting, only a few hundred of the addax and the Arabian oryx remain in the wild. The Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), a nongovernmental organization that collects global information on endangered species, now lists the scimitar-horned oryx as extinct in the wild. Small populations now survive only in protected parks and in some zoos.
Many antelopes are hunted for food and for their hide, but another threatened species, the chiru, is hunted for its ultra-fine wool, which is known as shahtoosh. Chirus are extremely wary and their wool cannot be shorn like a sheep’s wool. Instead, poachers kill chirus and then shear their wool. Although the sale of this wool is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the heavy demand for this wool on the black market has decimated the chiru’s population.
In recent decades conservation programs have had some positive impact with species that have been overhunted. Captive-breeding programs for the Arabian oryx, which began in the 1960s in zoos in the United States and Europe, have produced more than 2,000 animals. The species has been reintroduced into the wild in protected areas of Oman, and its future looks reasonably secure. Similar conservation programs involving zoos around the world exist for the addax and scimitar-horned oryx.
Conservationists are using a different approach to help the chiru. By educating retailers and consumers about the full implications of buying shahtoosh, they hope to stem the demand for the wool and curtail its illegal trade.
For antelopes in general, a more intractable problem is shortage of space. A century ago Africa was almost entirely unfenced, and grassland species such as gnus roamed freely across the continent. Throughout the 20th century much of their former habitat has been transformed into cattle ranches, bringing antelopes into direct competition with farmed animals. Large antelope herds still exist in some of Africa’s national parks, but antelope populations are becoming smaller and more fragmented, a trend that is likely to create conservation problems in years to come.
