Fears that Angola’s Giant Sable Antelope was extinct have been proved groundless, according to a Pretoria academic who this week returned from an expedition to that country.
Pretoria University’s Centre for Wildlife Management, the Kissama Foundation of Angola and the Augostinho Neto University in Luanda undertook the special survey in August.
Professor Wouter van Hoven of the Centre for Wildlife Management said in a statement several aerial surveys of the Luando Reserve by helicopter delivered no sightings of the antelope.
”The reason for this is presumably that the antelope are very sensitive to the presence of helicopters in the area, and avoid the sound at all cost.”
However, interviews with people in the area revealed that the Giant Sable Antelope were often sighted in the Luando Reserve, he said.
”The expedition then changed tactics and started with ground surveys on foot in the Cangandala National Park. This proved to be the right decision, and three separate sightings of Giant Sable Antelope were recorded.”
The first sighting was of two adult bulls, followed by a single adult bull and a third sighting of two sub-adults, Van Hoven said.
Many tracks as well as dung, including those of adults and juveniles, were also recorded in the area.
”This expedition has proven that there is a viable breeding population of Giant Sable Antelope in the Cangandala National Park,” he said.
Further ground surveys of Luando and Cangandala were being planned, with the aim of establishing the numbers and distribution of the Giant Sable Antelope.
Angola has just emerged from nearly three decades of civil war and is in the grip of a severe famine. – Sapa