Arabian oryx
| Arabian oryx | ||||||||||||
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Arabian oryx |
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| Oryx leucoryx | ||||||||||||
| ( Pallas , 1777) |
The Arab oryx ( oryx leucoryx ) is an antelope from the genus of oryx , once in the desert and semi-desert was spread West Asia. It is also often called the white oryx .
features
As the smallest of all oryx species, Arabian oryx have a shoulder height of around 80 to 100 cm and weigh up to 70 kg. The fur is mostly very light, almost white. The legs and the underside are yellow to brown. The antelopes have a dark brown and white face mask.
Both sexes have very long horns that are not or only slightly curved . They reach lengths of 50 to 70 cm.
Way of life
The Arabian oryx is perfectly adapted to life in the desert. The reflective color of the fur protects them from the heat. When there is a lack of water and high temperatures, the Arabian oryx can increase their body temperature up to 46.5 ° C (at night it drops below 36 ° C). This also keeps the water requirement small. The animals also lose very little fluid when they pass their feces and urine. The brain is supplied with blood, the temperature of which is lowered by a unique network of capillaries in the carotid artery .
They feed on buds, grass, and leaves, and do well without fluids for several days. The antelopes, which live in areas where there is usually no surface water, cover their fluid requirements in part by licking dew or moisture that has got stuck in the skins of other animals from fog . Only pregnant animals need water every day. They can see rain and fresh pasture and are moving towards them. The animals rest during the day.
The females and young animals live in herds of an average of five animals. The individual herds have "pasture areas" of more than 3,000 km². Males are loners who defend territories of sizes up to 450 km².
Extinction, conservation breeding and reintroduction
Originally, the Arabian oryx was widespread from the Sinai Peninsula over the Levant to Mesopotamia and on the Arabian Peninsula. Already in the 19th century it was exterminated in almost all of these areas and restricted to retreat areas in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. Because of the leather, the meat and simply for pleasure, the last antelopes were shot with guns from motorized vehicles, so that after 1972 all wild animals were exterminated.
A worldwide conservation breeding program began in the USA in the late 1960s with nine specimens in the Phoenix Zoo and three animals in the Los Angeles Zoo . These two groups, formed from zoo animals and privately owned, were the so-called world herd from which all of the Arabian oryx living today descended. Since people's attitude towards nature conservation had changed in the meantime in the region of origin , Arabian oryx could again be released in Oman (1982), Jordan (1983), Saudi Arabia (1990) and in the United Arab Emirates (2007). Small herds have also been released in Israel and Bahrain . The release into the wild is time-consuming and expensive, as the animals are mostly flown in from overseas and are gradually prepared for independent survival in the desert.
The IUCN continued to list the Arabian oryx as threatened for a long time . In Oman, the animals were still illegally hunted and have become increasingly rare since they were released, so that the population had fallen from almost 500 to less than 100 animals. In June 2007, UNESCO removed the wildlife sanctuary of the Arabian oryx , which was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List , from the World Heritage List again in June 2007, as the government of Oman had decided to reduce the size of the protected area by 90 percent. It is the first time a world heritage site has been removed from the UNESCO list.
In contrast, the trend in the populations of Saudi Arabia and Israel is rising slightly. However, the stocks were still threatened by drought and the associated food shortage. The population in the Mahazat-as-Sayd sanctuary in Saudi Arabia collapsed from over 600 animals in 2006 to fewer than 400 animals in 2008 because the animals could not leave the fenced-in protected area and therefore could not avoid the regional drought.
In Abu Dhabi , Arabian oryx have been released into the wild in various protected areas. The Al Ain Zoo maintains a herd on Sir Bani Yas Island, from which the animals come.
Around 6000–7000 Arabian oryx now live in human care, most of them in Arabia. In December 2008 there were 671 Arabian oryx living in scientifically managed zoological gardens worldwide, 537 of them in Europe, where 67 births were recorded in 2008.
In 2011, around 1000 wild specimens were once again living on the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent areas. Of these, 50 each were in Oman and Jordan, 100 in Israel, 200 in the United Arab Emirates and 600 in Saudi Arabia. The IUCN was able to downgrade the Arabian oryx from critically endangered to endangered .
Duration
The transnational General Secretariat for the Conservation of the Arabian Oryx gives the following population figures for each member country.
| Country | Duration |
|---|---|
 Bahrain
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144 |
 Iraq
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k. A. |
 Yemen
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1 |
 Jordan
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111 |
 Qatar
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1,546 |
 Kuwait
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13 |
 Oman
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961 |
 Saudi Arabia
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1,331 |
 Syria
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70 |
 United Arab Emirates
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10,203 |
literature
- M. Zafar-ul Islam, Khairi Ismail, Ahmed Boug: Restoration of the endangered Arabian Oryx Oryx leucoryx, Pallas 1766 in Saudi Arabia lessons learned from the twenty years of re-introduction in arid fenced and unfenced protected areas . In: Zoology in the Middle East . Volume 54, Supplement 3, 2011, pp. 125–140 , doi : 10.1080 / 09397140.2011.10648904 .
Web links
- Oryx leucoryx in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2017. Posted by: IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2016. Retrieved on 5 October 2017th
- General Secretariat for the Conservation of the Arabian Oryx
- WWF on the 2nd extinction of the Arabian oryx
Individual evidence
- ^ Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary: first site ever to be deleted from UNESCO's World Heritage List
- ↑ M. Zafar-ul Islam, Khairi Ismail, Ahmed Boug: Catastrophic die-off of globally threatened Arabian Oryx and Sand Gazelle in the fenced protected area of the arid central Saudi Arabia. In: Journal of Threatened Taxa. Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010, ISSN 0974-7893 , pp. 677-684, online (PDF; 479 kB) ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Brought back from the brink of extinction - Arabian Oryx on Sir Bani Yas! Retrieved October 6, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Oryx leucoryx in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2017. Posted by: IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2016. Retrieved on 5 October 2017th
- ^ A grain of hope in the desert. In: IUCN. June 16, 2011, accessed June 26, 2011 .
- ^ Member States. General Secretariat for the Conservation of the Arabian Oryx. Retrieved April 10, 2019.
