Fall 2012

LAND NEWS
the world and from that he raised hundreds of animals. He’s since sent some
to African reserves for eventual reintroduction into the wild, but he believes the
best hope to sustain the species today lies on the Texas range.
stable or growing.
Logan: The numbers, you can’t argue with that?
Condy: When you’re talking about conservation, it’s the numbers that are the
bottom line.
But for Priscilla Feral, the bottom line is that these animals should not be
hunted. She’s helped create a reserve in Senegal for 175 orxy and in court,
she’s winning the legal battle she’s been fighting for years to stop them from
being hunted in the U.S.
Bamberger: I’ve got ranchers that I started them out on with half a dozen animals
that got 200 now.
Logan: But if you’re a conservationist, and you’ve given up your land, you’ve
given up thousands, millions of dollars to save this species. Yet you’re not against
hunting them?
Bamberger: Well, I wouldn’t do it here. I’m not fond of it at all, but I’m wise
enough, smart enough to know if there’s no incentive, if altruism is the only
incentive you’re not gonna get a great deal of participation on someone whose
livelihood depends on bringing in dollars.
[Logan: You’d think you were in Africa, look at the giraffe sitting there]
We turned to one of the world’s top conservationists, Pat Condy, who lives in
Texas, to find out what he thought.
Pat Condy: That’s the scimitar horned oryx. Altogether, on different ranches,
many different ranches, there are somewhere between six and 10 thousand of
these animals.
Pat Condy has devoted his life to saving animals and he showed us around the
Fossil Rim Wildlife Center outside of Dallas which he runs. It’s a world leader in
breeding rare and endangered animals.
And it’s also a place where tourists can get closer to these beautiful creatures
than they ever could in the wild.
Logan: Do you think that Texas ranches are saving animals from extinction?
Condy: There’s no question about it, that they are.
Logan: What gives you the confidence to say what you’re saying?
Condy: What gives me the confidence is when you look at the numbers, the
animal numbers, okay, and you see that they’re not declining, that they’re either
In April, a new rule issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took effect,
making it a crime to hunt the scimitar horned oryx -- and two other endangered
antelope -- without a federal permit. Texas ranchers are challenging the new
rule in court.
Seale: Just since the announcement of that rule the value of those animals has
probably dropped in half. You’ve got to understand, I’m a rancher to make a
profit, just like any business.
Logan: How does this rule change affect that?
Seale: I will say that in five years you’ll see half the numbers that you see today.
And I would venture to guess in 10 years they’ll be virtually none of ‘em left.
Feral: The future for oryxes is Africa. It’s not Texas.
Logan: Can the future not be both? Don’t they have a greater chance of survival
the more of them there are?
Feral: In their native lands.
Logan: Regardless of where they are?
Feral: I don’t think you can say regardless of where they are. A Texas hunting
ranch is not the same as being in a reserve in Senegal.
Condy: Put the hunting aspect to one side, and take a 50,000 foot view over
this, this resource of a species that is extinct in the wild is going to disappear
now from Texas, slowly but surely.
Logan: So who’s winning the day here?
Condy: I don’t think anybody’s winning the day. One thing is for sure, they are
losing it. Those species are losing it.
30 FALL 2012