The Endangered Hirola Antelope
With fewer than 500 left, the Hirola Antelope (Beatragus hunteri) is on the brink of extinction. Without immediate action, a mammalian genus will go extinct for the first time on mainland Africa in modern human history.
The hirola is the last living representative of an evolutionary lineage that originated over 3 million years ago. The surviving herds live along the Kenya-Somalia border, inhabited by the Pokomo community and Ishaqbini Conservancy. Resembling a hybrid of impala and hartebeest, the hirola is instantly recognizable by its trademark white “spectacles.”
The Nature Conservancy’s key partner in northern Kenya, Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), in 2006 established the Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy to save the hirola. Ishaqbini is home to Somali pastoralists who voluntarily established a dedicated area for hirola. The people of Ishaqbini have been quietly conserving this landscape for centuries and regard the hirola as a blessing…
(read more: The Nature Conservancy) (photo: Rainbirder/FlickR)
