Trail Camera Photos Capture Rare Antelopes in a Kenya Forest Where Conservationists Once Feared They Had Vanished
Key takeaways
- Carlyn Kranking | Associate Web Editor, Science
- The mountain (or eastern) bongo is a chestnut-colored antelope with big ears and vertical white stripes.
- The mountain bongo is known to be shy and has been referred to as the ghost of the forest.
Carlyn Kranking | Associate Web Editor, Science
Add as preferred source. A young male bongo photographed in Maasai Mau, Kenya Chester Zoo and MBP New images from trail cameras reveal three critically endangered antelopes known as mountain bongos wandering through a forest in Kenya. The photographs capture one of Africa’s rarest mammals at a site where it had not been documented for years, offering a ray of hope for a creature that has nearly vanished from the wild.
“The excitement in camp was unbelievable when we first looked through the photos,” Oscar Dyer, director of operations at the Mountain Bongo Project (MBP), the only conservation group dedicated solely to protecting the bongos, says in a statement. “Seeing a bongo here again is incredibly exciting—and it reinforces our determination to continue searching, protecting this forest and finding evidence of more bongos.”