{"id":28672,"date":"2019-01-11T06:22:36","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T06:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28672"},"modified":"2019-01-11T06:22:36","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T06:22:36","slug":"how-the-arabian-oryx-was-brought-back-from-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28672","title":{"rendered":"How the Arabian oryx was brought back from extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nDUBAI: More than four decades ago, the Arabian oryx was extinct in the wild. But today, thanks to efforts spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, experts are citing the swell in its numbers as one of the world\u2019s biggest conservation success stories.<\/p>\n

\nIn the early 1970s, the antelope was considered all but vanished due to hunting and poaching.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nNow it is not only back from the brink, but in 2011 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reclassified it to \u201cvulnerable\u201d from \u201cendangered,\u201d the first time a species that was once \u201cextinct in the wild\u201d improved in status by three full categories out of six on its Red List of Threatened Species.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThere are now an estimated 1,220 wild oryx across the Arabian Peninsula, in addition to between 6,000 and 7,000 in semi-captivity.<\/p>\n

\nExperts at the IUCN have revealed to Arab News that the Arabian oryx could be upgraded to another level on its list within years, to \u201cnear-threatened,\u201d thanks to regional breeding programs and reintroduction initiatives in the Kingdom, the UAE and the wider Gulf.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAbout 40 years or so ago, the Arabian oryx was extinct in the wild formally, which meant there were none of these animals left in the wild, just those in captivity or in private collections,\u201d said David Mallon, co-chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission\u2019s Antelope Specialist Group.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cUnfortunately, we don\u2019t really have very much detailed information on the past. We\u2019ve just got plenty of anecdotal reports of oryx around, and as far as we know the species was very widespread across the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. In the north it went as far as Iraq and Kuwait, Syria in the northwest and then Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE in the south,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut as soon as motor vehicles and modern weapons arrived, the destructive potential of hunting rapidly increased. Before, if you were on a camel and you had a single shot, by the time you had another bullet in the gun the oryx would\u2019ve run off. But when motor vehicles and more modern, reloadable rifles were introduced \u2014 you can wear oryx out through exhaustion \u2014 hunting became a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nTheir numbers rapidly declined, and by 1950 the northern population had disappeared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\"\"\u201cThis just left the southern population based around the Empty Quarter, southeast Saudi Arabia and the border of the UAE and Oman. Then by the 1960s, it went down and down and down,\u201d Mallon said.<\/p>\n

\nOperation Oryx, which included the World Wildlife Fund and Phoenix Zoo in the US, was set up to establish a herd in captivity to prepare to reintroduce them into the wild.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey caught a few of them from the southern population in Yemen on the border with Oman and took them back to London Zoo. Then there were a couple donated from the ruler of Saudi Arabia at the time, and they were taken to Phoenix Zoo in Arizona, which has a similar desert climate, and they built up this world herd,\u201d Mallon said, adding that this provided hope for the desert animal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe first reintroduction of 10 animals was in 1982 at the Omani Central Desert and Coastal Hills in the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIt was subsequently extended to Saudi Arabia at the Mahazat Al-Sayd Protected Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nReleases in this fenced area began in 1990.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIn 1995, a secondary release site was established in Uruq Bani Ma\u2019arid in the southern part of the Kingdom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIn 1997, said Mallon, oryx were released in three sites in northern Israel, and were introduced to the UAE a few years later in the oryx reserve in Abu Dhabi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nOther sites have since been established, and reintroductions in \u201csemi-captive\u201d sites \u2014 vast fenced areas to protect them from poachers \u2014 have also been made in Jordan and Bahrain, while reintroductions in Kuwait, Iraq and Syria have been proposed, according to the IUCN.<\/p>\n

\nSuccessful population growth and releases, in addition to the estimated millions of dollars being spent across the Gulf annually on conservation, have driven the population numbers to current levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMallon said it is a major feat to have brought the Arabian oryx back from the brink of extinction, and one that the IUCN hopes will be repeated for other threatened species.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Arabian oryx was \u2018extinct\u2019 on the Red List, then they became \u2018critically endangered.\u2019 Once the population increased they moved to \u2018endangered,\u2019 and then moved to a level where they could be called \u2018vulnerable.\u2019 It\u2019s a really good conservation story. The next target they have to get to is \u2018near-threatened,\u2019 and that\u2019s not far off,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\nThe IUCN formally categorizes numbers of a species that are at reproductive age.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe only count the mature individuals, so we don\u2019t count the young ones. We have about 1,220 now, including the young ones, and we\u2019d say about 850 are mature,\u201d Mallon said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFor the oryx to move to the \u2018near-threatened\u2019 category, we\u2019d need to get figures to about 1,400 of these animals, so about half as many again. Considering where we were and where we are now, this is an achievable feat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe main populations of the species today are in Saudi Arabia, where there are about 600 in the wild, and the UAE, where there are more than 400 by official numbers, although Mallon said there may be significantly more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMany more are in semi-captivity.<\/p>\n

\nThere are about 110 in the wild in Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nDespite a promising start in Oman, few of the species remain in the country due to poaching.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe IUCN estimates that there are just 10 left in the wild in Oman, with a couple of hundred more in semi-captivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMallon said there are few conservation stories as successful as the Arabian oryx, and it was the foresight of Saudi and Emirati rulers, and bodies that established large breeding sites across the Arab world, that have saved the animal from extinction.<\/p>\n

\nCoordination between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries \u2014 such as the General Secretariat for the Conservation of the Arabian Oryx, which was established in 2001 as a landmark regional initiative aimed at coordinating and unifying conservation efforts in the Arabian Peninsula \u2014 has also helped.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis helps to vary the genetics as much as possible, and ensures the longevity of the species,\u201d said Mallon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere has been a huge amount of genetic sampling of all the herds to establish which ones are the most diverse. They\u2019re genetically well-managed, and the animals are very carefully looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nConservation of endangered animals is a growing trend in the Kingdom. In the study \u201cConservation in Saudi Arabia: Moving from Strategy to Practice,\u201d published in the Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences in 2018, authors noted that there are \u201cmarked conservation successes\u201d in the Kingdom of not only the Arabian oryx, but two other endangered species: The sand gazelle and the Arabian gazelle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe report added that the Saudi Wildlife Authority, established in 1986, has introduced several measures, with more on the way, to deter poachers and other factors that negatively affect populations of endangered species.<\/p>\n

\nBut Mallon said challenges for the Arabian oryx remain: \u201cWhat\u2019s needed is to continue with the captive breeding efforts to continue breeding animals, to continue the existing reintroduction sites and maintaining regional efforts and collaboration across the Arabian Peninsula. This is vital to maximize genetic diversity and reduce the risk of inbreeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe added: \u201cA massive Arabia Peninsula-wide education program on not shooting and hunting, and confiscation of weapons and a massive license system, would also help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMallon said: \u201cWithout conservation, these species probably wouldn\u2019t survive. Yet the Arabian oryx is an important part of Arabian biodiversity. It\u2019s the one animal that\u2019s adapted to hyper-arid deserts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nHe added: \u201cIt\u2019s an exemplar to a species that has adapted to these conditions, which will be very useful in the future in terms of climate change. It also has its natural role, and serves as a flagship for the desert ecosystem, and also has huge cultural value. So it\u2019s almost the duty of people to preserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMallon said efforts thus far deserve worldwide commendation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt has been a huge conservation success story of its time. At the time, it was an absolute flagship project. It was a real exemplar of what can be done,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA crucial part of conservation success stories is to have government support, funding and long-term commitment. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve seen in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the wider GCC.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DUBAI: More than four decades ago, the Arabian oryx was extinct in the wild. But today, thanks to efforts spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, experts are citing the swell in its numbers as one of the world\u2019s biggest conservation success stories. In the early 1970s, the antelope was considered all but vanished due…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":28673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}