The African hirola, also known as the "four-eyed antelope" for the distinctive preorbital glands under its eyes (don't worry, scientists aren't making fun of it) has finally been collared. Naturally an elusive species, the hirola was already rare in 1986, but only ten years later the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) classified it as critically endangered, with fewer than 500 members of the species left.
Scientists chose nine antelopes as the target of their study after 18 months of monitoring a herd, Treehugger reports. The collars will record location data every three hours for a year and drop off in the summer of 2014, at which point researchers will retrieve them.
Cath Lawson, the Zoological Society of London's Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) program director, told Treehugger that in the past 30 years, the number of hirola has plummeted almost 90 percent — they numbered 16,000 in 1979. By 2010, researchers managed to count 245 in three areas, although that number could be a slight undercount.
Hirola remain at risk from the threat of habitat loss, poaching and climate change. Several large carnivores hunt hirola for food, and the antelope must also compete with domestic cattle and other herbivores in its natural range.
The species originally populated swaths of southwest Somalia and northeastern Kenya, but prolonged conflict in the region has greatly reduced its former range. Its presence in Somalia is unknown, according to the IUCN red list, but now the hirola occupies only a tiny bit of northern Kenya.
If the hirola go extinct, the Beatragus genus goes with them, as it is the only remaining species in the category. A small translocated population of hirola is in Tsavo East National Park, and only two members are in captivity.
Other species on the Zoological Society of London's focal species list include several species of echidna, the Bactrian camel, the pygmy three-toed tree sloth and the saola, among others. The saola resembles an antelope, but is actually more closely related to wild cattle, and it was only discovered in 1992 in southeast Asia. Since its discovery, the saola has been classified as another critically endangered species.
