Step up bid to save rare bongo antelope

Monday, July 8 was a watershed for wildlife conservation in Kenya. It marked the launch of the National Recovery and Action Plan for the Mountain Bongo.

The aim of the plan, whose lifetime is 2019-2023 and is being spearheaded by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and a consortium of other organisations like the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy, is to secure a population of 730 bongo antelopes over the next 50 years. The mountain bongo was classified as a ‘critically endangered species’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group) in 2017.