Over the years, many wild animals have faced extinction and others been termed ‘endangered’ meaning they are near extinction. One of the earlier feared extinct species was the white-eared kob. However, after two decades, the Kidepo Valley National Park (KVNP) has shinned a ray of hope with a fully grown white-eared kob recently spotted grazing on the park’s vegetation.
Mayimayi, a dedicated naturalist, while commenting on this said that the spotted white eared kob is an addition to what he saw during an evening game drive on which he again also spotted Thomson’s Gazelles in December.
“This is good news for conservation,” said Manyimanyi adding: “There are more rare wildlife species being sighted again in Uganda’s wild places. Last year, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) announced the sighting of a white-eared kob in Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve. Our darling elephant Bulbul which sips beer returned after eloping with another family in South Sudan for a year!”
“This is another specie that had been reported extinct in Uganda. I had to verify those gazelle images with Grammy, who explained that the animals could be returning from South Sudan and the Turkana side of Kenya.”
Earlier on, UWA only had a blurred photograph shot in haste without good light of the white-eared kob in its archieves. The good news comes in rapid succession to owls, shy cheetahs, and lions that tourists spend fortunes to see in the wild.
The Uganda Wildlife Education Center executive director James Musinguzi attributes the appearance of a mammal thought to be extinct to the national conservation efforts.
“Wildlife is faced with threats of poachers, climate change, and loss of habitat. This is a vicious circle of challenges conservationists are battling. Tourists are astonished seeing such animals resurface to slinking through the rocky terrain again,” he added,
UWA spokesperson Gessa Simplicious also commented that they must be able to identify where a given species occurs and what habitat they need to exist.
“By reporting species sightings to UWA, one helps biologists build a picture of the state of our state’s biodiversity,” he further explains.
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