The western savanna is home to Keerso, Vans impala and, Tapper impalas. Keerso are one of the most populous animals in the area, leading to herds being domesticated for meat. Vans impala are seen as blessed animals, and killing them is looked down on.
The mountainous eastern coast is home Guinin, and Tapin. Both have been domesticated, wild populations still exist naturally. Guinin are often used in hauling due to their hefty builds. Tapin are fast, and sure footed. They can jump along tough terrain with ease and are often used for general transport. These species as historically important to the area.
That's a heck of a leap; gotta be about, what twenty-five feet or so? Wonder what it would have been with a clean, unimpeded landing? Hope the deer was okay after the adrenaline wore off. Ironically, the person pulling up in the SUV was there to buy the (apparently flawless pre-crash-landing) pickup, and the original post is full of people asking "But did they end up buying the truck anyway?"
One of the most iconic symbols of freedom and wilderness is the wild horse; it's fitting, then, that the Przewalski's (sheh-VAHL-skee) horse is known as "takhi," which means "spirit" in Mongolian.
(Image: A pair of Przewalski's horses (Equus przewalskii) by Katalin Ozogány)
Okapi! They’re an endangered, even-toed ungulate native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, most closely related to giraffes. They have long, prehensile tongues they use to pull leaves off of tall branches - they’re long enough that they can lick their own ears!
[ID: an illustration of an adult and a juvenile okapi. The adult is leaning its neck down to greet the young one, who is reaching up its neck. They are on a light green background with stylized grasses. End.]
Hippos are often thought of as savanna animals, but the pygmy hippopotamus is adapted to live in the jungles of Western Africa. It can be thought of as a sort of combination of the common hippo and a forest hog or tapir. By day they rest in water in secluded parts of the forest. At night, they go out foraging for food, including ferns, fruits, and basically any other plants close to the ground. They might be called pygmy hippos, but their size is still nothing to scoff at!
Okay, so I'm a couple months behind on this news, but it's still exciting! There are only a few hundred of these North African antelope in the wild thanks to over a century of overhunting. However, several thousand exist in captivity, and contain genetic diversity that will be crucial for ongoing reintroduction efforts in parts of the addax's historic range.
That is, if those captive addax are made available to facilities working toward reintroduction. Many of the captive addax in the United States are owned by ranches that cater to trophy hunters. Instead of being used to produce new generations destined to be returned to reserves like those in Morocco and Tunisia, among others, instead the addax are raised to be "super exotic trophies" shot by hunters. One site even boasts that Texas has more addax than everywhere else in the world combined.
Just to be clear, I am not anti-hunting across the board; I know several people here in the US who go deer and waterfowl hunting to fill the freezer for the year. However, there seems to be something incredibly wrong the fact that more addax are raised to be slaughtered as trophies than are sent to replenish wild populations. I suppose it's an improvement over people flying to Africa to poach from the last wild herds, but I'd love to see the sorts of money dropped into trophy herds being put toward habitat restoration and addax reintroduction. None of the hunting ranch sites I looked at said anything about contributing animals or other resources to reintroduction efforts, though they certainly had a lot to say about the opportunity to hunt a "super rare" antelope.
On the bright side, zoos are more active in reintroduction efforts, and so it's wonderful news to hear that this is the second addax born at the Brookfield Zoo in as many years. Hopefully this little one and her brother will have descendants that will run wild in the north African deserts again.