World_of_Animals_Issue_46_2017

Scimitar-horned oryx
Scimitar-Horned
oryx
Oryx dammah
class Mammalia
territory Previously found
across the Sahara and Sahel
diet Grasses, shrubs and roots
Lifespan 15-20 years
adult weight 200kg (440.9lb)
conservation Status
EXTINCT IN THE WILD
also minimises heat stress,
and the oryx may also lick
dew off each other’s coats
at night as a means of
consuming additional fluid.
“Oryx are preferentially
grazers,” Wacher says,
“but are adaptable and
can browse on selected
plants when conditions
become tough in the long
dry season, which lasts
from October to the end
of May.” Getting most of
their moisture from their
food can be hard during the
dry seasons, but incredibly these animals can survive for
weeks at a time without drinking!
The scimitar-horned oryx was classified as Extinct in
the Wild in 2000 after a long struggle with habitat loss.
“The major factor impacting the oryx across their original
range was probably the invasion of their living space by
livestock,” Wacher explains. Rapidly evolving technology
to bring water to dry lands was also part of the issue. “For
example,” Wacher continues, “water tanker lorries and
giant plastic bladder reservoirs all enabled livestock to stay
longer on dry land that they previously had to leave early
for lack of surface water, so they continue to chew down
on, and ultimately kill, the naturally drying vegetation.”
This combination of factors resulted in the oryx being
pushed to the brink of extinction. “The last significant oryx
populations were in Chad, where they still existed in large
numbers of up to tens of thousands at the beginning of
the 1970s,” says Wacher. “However, a period of civil unrest
in the area, in which the frontline lay across the heart
of the oryx range, ultimately drove the last remaining
scimitar-horned oryx population to die out.”
But despite this sad story, all is not lost. Indeed the oryx
was driven to extinction in the wild, but thanks to the fact
that these antelope are incredibly hardy and adaptable
animals, they now have a second chance. “The founder
group of oryx now represented in the world’s zoos and
more widely in private collections mainly derive from a
group of 40 individuals from the wild from the late 1960s,”
Wacher elaborates when asked about the origins of the
oryx now living in the Ouadi Rime-Ouadi Achime reserve.
Scimitar-horned
oryx on the map
These antelope are the buffalo of North Africa. Once ranging
widely across the whole Sahara and Sahel region, they are
now limited to small pockets of protected land.
Historic range
The introduced population living in
the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Reserve
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