Faculty of Tropical AgriScience

Introduction
Interesting Facts about Giant Elands
Get Involved!
Contacts
Studbooks
Photo Gallery
Documents

Introduction

The Giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus) is the largest antelope in the world. The western subspecies of the Giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus derbianus) is critically endangered with less than 200 individuals living in wild. This remaining population lives only in the Niokolo Koba National Park. In response to their dwindling numbers, the Western Giant eland (WDE) conservation programme was established in 2000 with the support of experts from CZU. In 2010, the NGO Derbianus Conservation was established to support the collaboration of pedagogues, students from the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and other specialists and conservation enthusiasts. Thanks to their activities and long-term Senegalese-Czech cooperation, there are now more than 100 living individuals of Western Giant eland in semi-captivity in natural reserves Bandia and Fathala.

Derbianus Conservation NGO is now internationally recognized conservation organisation building capacities for antelope conservation across the region of the whole West and Central African savanna, training students from all over the world to save the diversity of species and ecosystems. With more than 20 years of experience in the antelope conservation in West African savanna, Derbianus Conservation provides scientific evidence for the conservation management decisions, build capacities for the antelope conservation, provide support for field operations, and campaign for the conservation of antelopes and the ecosystems.

Interesting Facts about Giant Elands

The Giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus) together with the Common eland (Taurotragus oryx) is the largest antelope on the planet. Both, males and females have long spiral horns that can reach more than a meter in length. Each individual can be distinguished according to the characteristic stripes on its body. They can carry 11 to 17 stripes on each side, the number and shape of these stripes does not change during the individual's lifetime. A distinctive and contrasting black and white dewlap appears just under the jaw-line and the ears are rounded. The males are bigger and more robust than the females.

The Giant eland has two subspecies that differ in area of distribution and conservation status. The Eastern subspecies of the Giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus gigas, Heuglin, 1863) originally spread to Nigeria, Cameron, Chad, the Central Republic of Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) north as far as Sudan and Uganda. Nowadays, approximately 9,000 individuals remain in Cameroon, the Central Republic of Africa and South Sudan. It is recognized by the IUCN as “vulnerable”.

The Western subspecies of Giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus derbianus, Gray, 1847) used to spread across Senegal, Gambia, Guinea- Bissau, Mali, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, Togo and Ghana at the beginning of last century. In 1990 the population of the Western Giant eland was estimated as 1,000 individuals. According to the current estimations, the last 100-200 of wild individuals remain in the Niokolo Koba national park in Senegal. Poaching, livestock overgrazing and other human activities has had the greatest negative impact on this population.

Get Involved!

Derbianus Conservation support students’ involvement into the field conservation activities, provides trainings for field data processing, analyses and interpretation for the science-based conservation decision making. Support the activities by purchasing the antelope merch, become a volunteer and join our team! Visit the website http://www.derbianus.cz and find out more.

Contacts

Dr. Karolína Brandlová, email: karolina@derbianus.cz

Derbianus Conservation, z. s., http://www.derbianus.com/

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Kamýcká 129, 165 00 Prague 6

Studbooks

In 2008, the first volume of the studbook of the critically endangered Western Derby eland (African Studbook for the Western Derby eland Taurotragus derbianus derbianus) was published, and the studbook has been annually updated since then. This series of studbooks is internationally recognized in several aspects. First of all, it is a unique tool for the management of small population of this endangered taxon, kept in the semi-captive conditions in the two fenced nature reserves of Bandia and Fathala in Senegal. Thanks to the annual fieldwork, each individual is documented in detail, its relatedness to other animals in the population is identified, and its conservation value is calculated. It should be noted that in the wild, there is maximum of two hundred of these animals (only in the Niokolo Koba National Park in Senegal) and the back-up population in the reserves, which is based on six individuals captured in Niokolo Koba in 2000, currently contains more than 150 animals. Thanks to the perfect mapping of their pedigrees supplemented with genetic analyses, we can maximize the potential of breeding individuals and establish breeding herds to minimize inbreeding and maximize the use of rare and less widespread genetic variants. The studbook is also unique in terms of the quality of the data used. Only a few other strictly managed conservation breeding programmes of the world's zoos can boast 97% of the known pedigree. The importance of the studbook at the local level lies mainly in the education and training of local workers and nature conservation experts in Senegal, where similar expertise in the management of small populations of large ungulates is lacking. Without active studbook and subsequent breeding herd management, the Western Derby eland population in the reserves would lost of most of its value for conservation.