In an English safari park, keepers are celebrating the arrival of a calf from the world’s most endangered species of antelope, the eastern mountain bongo.
Born October 16th, first-time mom Othaya welcomed a male calf in the late afternoon marking the first bongo calf born at Woburn Safari Park in over 10 years.
It’s both a major success for the park and global conservation efforts to save this species native to Kenya.
“Othaya the bongo has successfully given birth to her first calf on Wednesday afternoon. After a long labor, the large healthy male calf was born and was soon seen standing on wobbly legs, in the deep bed of straw prepared for his arrival,” stated Tom Robson, Head of Reserves at the park. “Both mom and calf are doing really well.”
Sonny, the calf’s father, joined the four-strong bongo herd at the park last November and successfully mixed with the females, wasting no time in doing his job and displaying breeding behaviors.
“The bongo is part of a crucial breeding program and we are hoping in the future our new calf will travel to another wildlife collection and start a breeding group of his own,” Robson added.
Once the mom and baby are ready, they will rejoin the rest of the bongo herd in the African Forest exhibit, where visitors will soon have the chance to see the calf in person.
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The eastern mountain bongo species has been hunted almost to extinction in the wild, and with less than 100 individuals remaining, this birth is hugely important for the future of the species.
Its near-cousin the lowland bongo is readily dispersed across the Congo region and southern West Africa, and is not endangered. The mountain bongo, with its much deeper red coat, is found only on Mount Kenya.
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It has been estimated that without appropriate protections, the eastern mountain bongo may go extinct within 2 decades. However, several Critically Endangered species, like the West African lion, have made recoveries on the continent in recent years.
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