Credit: MARTYN GORMAN

A flagship conservation programme, the Arabian Oryx Project in Oman, has suffered a severe setback because of an illegal trade in live animals sold into private collections. The sad story was recounted by Andrew Spalton, a biologist with the project, at a conference in Abu Dhabi earlier this month.

In the early 1960s the Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx, pictured here) was being hunted to extinction, so a small number were captured to establish breeding herds in the United States and Arabia. The last wild animals were killed in the deserts of Oman in 1972. Ten years later, reintroductions began with the release of ten founder members into Oman's central desert just 75 km from where the last wild oryx had been shot. The liberated oryx flourished, despite serious drought, and by October 1995 there were around 280 animals in the wild, ranging over 16,000 km2 of desert.

A few months later the spectre of poaching returned and oryx began to be taken for sale as live animals outside Oman. Nonetheless, the number of animals continued to increase, to 400 or so, until increasing poaching pressure through 1997 and into 1998 led to a population crash to just 138 in September of last year. At that point the wild population was considered to be no longer viable and 40 animals were taken back into captivity. After further poaching in January of this year, just 11 females and an estimated 85 males remain in the wild.

There is a further reintroduction programme in Saudi Arabia, where poaching is currently less of a threat. So the outlook for oryx in the wild is not entirely grim. But in Oman the situation is bleak, and political action will be needed to remedy matters.