Addax  (Addax nasomaculatus)

The population of addax is today a mere fraction of what it once was and this dramatic decrease is mainly attributed to over-hunting. These slow-moving animals provide easy targets, particularly with motorized vehicles and automatic weapons, and their meat and leather are prized by local people (8). Other factors involved in the decline include desertification, drought and habitat encroachment by pastoral expansion and subsistence agriculture (5) (10). It is estimated that fewer than five hundred individuals survive in the wild today, with the bulk of these lying between the Termit area of Niger and the Bodélé region of Western Chad (9).

The addax is listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), thus prohibiting international trade (3). Provided effective protection is granted for the last remaining pockets of populations, it is possible that the species can increase. With this in mind, the Sahara Conservation Fund has developed a regional strategy that when implemented will protect the remaining wild populations and facilitate the recolonisation of neighbouring suitable habitats (10). A protected population exists in the Yotvata Hai-Bar (Wildlife Preserve) Nature Reserve in Israel, to the north of Elat (11). The reserve was set up in 1968 with the view to bolster populations of endangered desert species (12). In Niger, a vast protected area is being established in the Termit region to protect the largest remaining addax population in the wild (10). There are currently around 2,000 individuals in captive populations around the world and these are being used in reintroduction programmes for the species in Tunisia and Morocco (7) (13) (14).