More mountain bongos may live in American zoos than in Kenya
The mountain bongo, a striped chestnut antelope from central Kenya, is critically endangered, with perhaps only about 100 left in the wild as of 2013. North American zoos hold over 400 bongos, all descended from animals taken from the Aberdare Mountains, and those captive herds may be the key to putting the species back.
Bongos are the third-largest antelopes on Earth. Males can reach 405 kilograms, and both sexes carry heavy horns, 75 to 99 centimetres long, that twist once. Like all antelope horns they are hollow at the core, sheathed in keratin, and kept for life rather than shed like antlers. When a bongo bolts through tangled lianas, it lays those horns flat along its back so the undergrowth cannot snag them.
The coat is a bright auburn crossed by 10 to 15 pale vertical stripes, rarely the same number on each side, with white chevrons on the face and chest. Males darken towards mahogany as they age. The animals are shy and mostly nocturnal; after a fright a bongo dashes into cover, then stands facing away from the danger, peeking back now and then, ready to flee. Their forest is so dense that few Europeans or Americans had observed them before the 1960s.
Bulls tend to live alone, while females and young form groups of six to eight. Rival males usually settle disputes by display, bulging their necks, rolling their eyes and pacing with horns held upright. Calves hide for a week or more at traditional calving grounds while mothers make short visits to nurse. Bongos browse leaves, bark and roots, visit salt licks, and even chew burnt wood after storms, using a long grasping tongue like the unrelated okapi.
Rinderpest nearly wiped them out in the 1890s. For a time a local belief that touching or eating a bongo caused seizure-like spasms protected them, but that taboo has reportedly faded. Logging and hunting shrink their range. Recognising their plight, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums made the bongo a Species Survival Plan animal in 2000, and North American zoos are working on a reintroduction to Kenya.
Source: Bongo (antelope)
