The Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy (MKWC) is on track to receive four male mountain bongos from European zoos, a move aimed at helping boost the population of one of Africa’s most endangered antelope. The transfer was led by experts from Chester Zoo, in England, in collaboration with Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums. In a statement sent to Mongabay, the Chester Zoo said its experts spent more than 11 years coordinating a breeding program across European conservation zoos. “The four males now selected – chosen on the basis of age, health and genetics – will be the first to ever be transferred from European zoos to Kenya as part of a rewilding effort.” “Collaborations like this are absolutely essential if we are to prevent this magnificent species disappearing altogether,” Nick Davis, mammals general manager at Chester Zoo and coordinator of the European breeding program, said in a statement. “They demonstrate how modern, science-led zoos play an important role in bringing species back from the brink.” The most recent IUCN assessment in 2016 found the forest-dwelling antelope were critically endangered with just 70-80 adults remaining in the wild at the time, all of them in Kenya. In the last decade, mountain bongos (Tragelaphus eurycerus ssp. isaaci) briefly experienced a surge in the wild population. The Kenyan national wildlife census report states that in 2021, there were roughly 150 wild mountain bongos, but by 2025, there were just 66. Kenyan experts attribute the species’ decline to…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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