<
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20251202-the-extinct-antelope-bringing-hope-in-the-sahara-desert>
“When Marie Petretto and John Newby arrived in central Chad in the spring of
2012, they'd been sent with a mission to see this wide, open landscape as an
antelope might see it.
The Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve, a protected area on the edge of the
Sahara, is bigger than the Republic of Ireland, with vast expanses of sun-baked
drylands. New arrivals usually assume "it's just desert", says Petretto, a
biologist and wildlife veterinarian, but as they moved through, their team of
ecologists and conservationists documented its vast ranges of Sahelian
grasslands and wooded gorges. "At first the desert and arid lands seem very
flat and homogeneous," she says. "Once you start exploring, you realise how
incredibly varied they are."
Petretto recalls close to 100 gazelles bounding past their truck and finding
sparse clusters of acacia, some filled with vultures. Though ominous, these
trees operate like "umbrellas on the beach", she says, allowing wildlife to
rest in a landscape that can reach 50C (122F). River valleys, known as wadis,
burst into life during dramatic seasonal rains around July, and hold onto this
humidity through drier months, when they support food plants, such as wild
bitter melon, and small shrubs where animals can hide.
All these signs gave them confidence that this could be the place for an
audacious experiment to bring back a species that had vanished entirely from
the wild in the 1980s. While the hottest months in Ouadi Achim would be deadly
for most animals, the environment was ready-made for the scimitar-horned oryx,
an antelope that stands more than 1m (3.3ft) tall at the shoulder, and is named
for its long, elegant horns that reach backwards over its body like a curved
sword.
The oryx has evolved to live healthily around the edges of Sahara – able to
survive for months without water – but, by 2012, it lived only in zoos and
reserves scattered across the planet. If successful, their plan to release the
oryx would make it just the sixth-ever large mammal to have been declared
extinct in the wild then to have been brought back via captive breeding,
following the Przewalski's horse, European Bison, red wolf, Père David's deer
and the Arabian oryx.”
Via
What Could Go Right? Did Anything Good Happen in the US in 2025?
https://theprogressnetwork.org/good-news-united-states-2025/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
