- In March, the first five mountain bongos to have ever been rewilded were released into the sanctuary.
- This first batch has recorded a birth, proving the conservation efforts are bearing fruits.
Image: ENOS TECHE
Five more critically endangered mountain bongos have been released into Mawingu Mountain Bongo Sanctuary in Nanyuki.
The latest release brings the total number of mountain bongos re-wilded in 2022 to 10.
In March, the first five mountain bongos to have ever been rewilded were released into the sanctuary.
This first batch has recorded a birth, proving the conservation efforts are bearing fruits.
The latest release was done between Friday, November 25 and Thursday, December 1 in an intricate procedure that involved selection, capture and translocation, and post-release monitoring to ensure their safe welfare in the sanctuary.
Re-wilding is a process of providing suitable conditions that allow the wildlife originally under human care or degrade to regain their wild instincts (for animals) or for an area to regain its natural vegetation cover through succession.
Therefore, translocation is a step to re-wild, but does not necessarily mean that animals translocated have been re-wilded till they completely regain their wild instincts for free survival.
Former Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala launched the 776-acre Mawingu sanctuary on March 10, becoming the world's first-ever mountain bongo safe space.
Only 100 individual bongos are left in the world, making their conservation efforts critically urgent.
Since the release of the first batch of five bongos in March, the sanctuary has already registered one wild bongo birth.
The translocation was overseen by Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service, who are the government agency supporting the Mountain Bongo Breeding and Rewilding programme.
In line with the Government of Kenya's Mountain Bongo National Recovery and Action Plan (2019-2023), the programme aims to have 40-50 fully re-wilded mountain bongos by 2025 and 750 by 2050.
The re-wilding follows a record-breaking loss of wildlife populations in the region due to habitat loss, poaching and disease. According to last year’s National Wildlife Census in Kenya, less than 100 mountain bongos are left living naturally in the wild.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature predicts that this number will likely continue to decline unless deliberate action is taken to address these threats.
The mountain bongo is associated with forests in the Kenya highlands and is recorded to have become extinct in Kenya in 1995.
As of January 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the mountain bongo as critically endangered.
Through the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy’s dedicated conservation work spanning over two decades, Kenya now provides global leadership in efforts to prevent the extinction of this special antelope.
This entails, among other activities, ecosystem restoration work in close collaboration with the Mount Kenya local communities.
Robert Aruho, the head of conservancy at MKWC, said: “The mountain bongo breeding programme started in 2004. Our intention is to breed the bongos and prime the animals for survival in the wild."
Isaac Lekolool, head veterinary services at KWS, said: “At Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy, we have the bongo programme. Currently we are doing the bongo rehabilitation having set up the Mawingu Mountain Bongo Sanctuary, which was officially launched in the year."