Endangered
Mountain nyala
Tragelaphus buxtoni
Mountain nyala are endemic to the Ethiopian Highlands east of the Rift Valley, between 6°N and 10°N.
Appearance
The sensitive ears are large and lined with white hair. The coat is grey to brown, marked with two to five poorly defined white strips extending from the back to the underside, and a row of six to ten white spots. White markings are present on the face, throat and legs as well.
The head-and-body length is approximately 240–260 cm (94–102 in) in males and 190–200 cm (75–79 in) in females. The males are typically 120–135 cm (47–53 in) tall while females stand 90–100 cm (35–39 in) at the shoulder.
It is a monotypic species (without any identified subspecies) first described by English naturalist Richard Lydekker in 1910.
Range and habitat
The typical habitat for the mountain nyala is composed of montane woodlands at an altitude of 3,000–3,400 m (9,800–11,200 ft). Nowadays the continuous blocks of woodland habitat have been reduced to a series of pockets, interspersed in large cultivated lands. Human settlement and large livestock population have forced the animal to occupy heath forests at an altitude of above 3,400 m (11,200 ft) rich in Erica arborea, Erica trimera, Hypericum, Euphorbia, and Helichrysum species.
After the Bale Mountains National Park, the small Kuni-Muktar Mountain Nyala Sanctuary was established in 1990 was established as a second protected area. But by 1996 the sanctuary had been so severely affected by deforestation, poaching, cultivation and gully erosion, that the populations soon disappeared from there.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
The mountain nyala breed throughout the year, but the peak occurs in December. Prior to and during the breeding season the adult males tend to get associated with mixed sex herds.
In crisis
Four to five individuals may congregate for short intervals of time to form small herds. Human settlement and large livestock population have forced the animal to occupy heath forests at an altitude of above 3,400 m (11,200 ft). Up to half of the total population of the mountain nyala occurs in the 200 km2 (77 sq mi) area of Gaysay, in the northern part of the Bale Mountains National Park.
The mountain nyala has been classified under the Endangered category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). In 1991, there was widespread unrest in Ethiopia during that several mountain nyala were killed and the population in the Bale Mountains National Park fell to 150.
Mountain nyala is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Mountain nyala, Wikidata item Q255576. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
