Scimitar oryx

Scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah )

The scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah ) is a once native to the Sahara type of Oryx.

Exterior Features

Of the other species of the genus Oryx, it is distinguished by the long, strong backward curved horns from 1 to 1.25 meters in length. The shoulder height is 120 centimeters, weight up to 200 kilograms. The coat is white, dyed partly brownish.

Behavior

The sable antelope feeds on grasses, leaves and fruits, and lives in herds of up to seventy animals. The gestation period is about 270 days, after which the female gives birth to a single offspring.

Dissemination

As a pure desert animal, the scimitar-horned oryx lived in the central Sahara, in the large mammals are otherwise rare. While they were once lived in large herds from Mauritania to Egypt, there was finally only small residual populations in the north of Niger and Chad States. Once the herds should have included up to a thousand antelopes. Within the Sahara they wandered far and could survive for several months without water.

Eradication in freedom

Uncontrolled hunting, the last place from cars and airplanes that were once common scimitar-horned oryx in the wild was completely destroyed. Since their habitat offered them no way to prospect for hiding the destruction process was very quick. In Egypt, the scimitar-horned oryx in 1850 already died out. In the central Sahara, the herds survived several decades, but in the 1970s survived only small groups around the Termit Massif in Niger and the nature reserve Ouadi Rime Ouadi Achim in Chad. Extensive search expedition in the years 2001-2004 could sift no living Säbelantilope more, so that the IUCN did not have to change the status of the species occurring in wilderness. However, there was recently an unconfirmed sighting of four sable antelope in northern Niger.

Maintenance in captivity

Paradoxically, in the wilderness no longer occurring scimitar-horned oryx is the second most held in zoos antelope; only the blackbuck is represented more frequently. Overall, there were worldwide in 2005 at least 1,500 animals that were held within the framework of breeding programs. In the United Arab Emirates, probably about 4000 animals are kept in a private collection.

In early 2012 the stock on Texas hunting ranches had grown to at least 6,000 animals. The American animal rights organization " Friends of Animals ", however, won a lawsuit against the American conservation authority which has granted a special permit to hunt the protected antelope. As a result, the hunt was hampered on the Oryx in Texas from April 2012. Many farms have consequently reduced their Oryx stock. In the U.S. Congress there is a foray, the Save Endangered Species Act of 2013 to allow the hunting of sable antelope in the U.S. again.

Reintroduction

Since the scimitar-horned oryx was destroyed not by habitat destruction, but by hunting in freedom, reintroductions published soon make sense. Already in 1986, ten animals were reintroduced in southern Tunisia in a fenced area of the Bou- Hedma National Park. By 1997 this herd had increased to 84 animals.

In other fenced protected areas in Tunisia, Morocco and Senegal animals are kept.