American zoos helping restock Bongo numbers

By Joe Kiarie

For decades, Kenya’s Mountain Bongo had presented tourists with a rare spectacle at the Mount Kenya World Heritage Site. The Aberdare Forest alone had more than 500 bongos in 1975.

But their survival took a turn for the worse in 1977, when lion predation, poaching and habitat destruction saw their species almost becoming extinct.

In Mount Kenya World Heritage Site, not a single bongo was seen for nine years in the late 1990s. Today, it is one of the most threatened mammals in Africa.

But in one of the most crucial interventions, the Government banned their poaching in 1977 and in a precautionary measure, exported some to zoos in US and Europe.

In 2000, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums upgraded the bongo to a Species Survival Plan participant. The move was meant to improve the genetic diversity of managed animal populations. Some of the bongos, with Kenyan ancestry, in the US were later re-introduced to the rest of the population.

Zoo-bred bongos

On January 29, 2004, an Air Transport International DC-8 freighter landed in Nairobi carrying 18 zoo-bred bongos. The American Zoological Institutions handed them to the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy Forum. "Today, their number has risen to 57 but they are not kept in a natural habitat since they did not learn survival tactics while young," notes Patrick Omondi, Head of Species Conservation and Management at KWS. Some mature bongos are, however, being introduced to the wild.

He says, Kenya has 125 bongos in the wild, a number that is fast rising due to the day and night surveillance by KWS. Nine are at Iburu forest in Naivasha, 100 in the Aberdares, and 14 at the Mau Forest complex. Their movement is monitored using hidden cameras.

And with more than 500 bongos, of Kenyan ancestry, still in American zoos and 150 in the UK, Omondi says plans are underway to have a bongo national strategy that will see the animals brought back.

And he has a word of caution for the public. "We should look at what befell our bongos and ensure this does not happen to other animals".