The bontebok has recovered from just 17 surviving animals in the 1930s to between 9 800 and 11 000 today. (Flickr)
Restrictions on international trade have been lifted from South Africa’s endemic bontebok, a once-imperilled antelope that has rebounded from the brink of extinction.
The decision to delete the species from Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) was adopted by consensus at last week’s CoP20 meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where more than 150 Parties had gathered.
The bontebok has recovered from just 17 surviving animals in the 1930s to between 9 800 and 11 000 today, South Africa argued, submitting the successful proposal.
Yet fewer than 2 500 live within the species’ natural range in the Western Cape, where habitat loss, fragmentation and shrinking renosterveld and fynbos landscapes continue to restrict growth.
More than 70% now occur outside this range, mainly on private land in the Eastern Cape, Free State and Northern Cape. These populations make a meaningful contribution to the subspecies’ conservation, the proposal said.
International trade has been both low-risk and tightly regulated, it noted. Between 2010 and 2023, international clients hunted about 1 994 bontebok, while Cites records show that roughly 2 090 trophies and 35 live animals were exported during that period, with no evidence of illegal trade.
Trophy hunting plays a vital role in subsidising the costs of conserving bontebok on private land, the proposal said. Excessive administrative requirements under Cites have depressed bontebok’s financial value and, in turn, disincentivised landowners from conserving the species.
Bontebok auction prices have plummeted from about $5 000 in 2017 to roughly $300 today. By removing the species from Cites control, the government expects demand — and therefore value — to rise, estimating that prices could quadruple.
Higher prices, it said, will encourage more landowners to keep bontebok, expand available habitat, and strengthen the species’ conservation status.
“Deletion from the Appendices will incentivise more private landowners to conserve bontebok,” the proposal stated, stressing that competing land uses, especially agriculture and urban expansion, are eroding habitat within the natural range.
While the Western Cape population remains small, the government maintains that over-regulation itself is hampering further recovery, particularly if conservation assessments discount the 7 200 to 8 500 animals now thriving on private land outside the natural range.
The proposal outlined how key management measures are already in place, including translocations and genetic monitoring.
Protocols requiring individual DNA profiling with a verified microsatellite marker set have been implemented to prevent hybridisation with the closely related blesbok. In addition, a non-detriment finding concluded that legal domestic and international trade poses a low risk to the subspecies’ survival.
The Professional Hunters Association of South Africa welcomed the Cites decision as a “milestone” that recognises decades of investment in responsible wildlife management by landowners, conservationists and the hunting industry.
“Once facing extinction, the bontebok now stands as a powerful example of how sustainable use and science-based stewardship on private land can drive genuine species recovery,” it said.
But animal welfare groups condemned the removal of protections, warning that the decision exposes wild bontebok to new risks. Humane World for Animals South Africa said the species remains vulnerable within its natural range and still faces fragmentation, low genetic diversity and serious hybridisation threats.
“In a disastrous turn of events that could prove fatal for the bontebok, Parties at the CoP20 Cites meeting have decided to completely remove all protections from the species,” it said.
It added that this “extremely risky decision” was based on game breeders’ petitions to consider captive-bred bontebok, which exist mainly on private land in non-native areas, as a functional part of the bontebok population.
Audrey Delsink, the organisation’s senior director of wildlife, added: “The lack of Cites trade controls will threaten years of careful protection, exposing wild populations to hybridisation and removing essential safeguards for fragile genetics.”
The non-profit added that both the South African and global IUCN Red List assessments focus on conservation status within the natural range, which remains heavily constrained, and exclude populations introduced onto private land elsewhere.
Hybridisation, it said, is already a significant threat to the continued existence of both bontebok and blesbok subspecies.