Four mountain bongos have been repatriated from Czechia to Kenya as part of a long-running effort to save the critically endangered antelope. The males – Fitz, Maue, Kudu and Bon64 – arrived on a cargo plane at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and are now settling at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy.
The operation was led by experts from Chester Zoo and Safari Park Dvůr Králové, in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service. It marked the culmination of decades of work to bolster the species’ population, which numbers fewer than 100 in the wild, confined to Kenya’s highland forests.
Wildlife officer Ngenoh Erick Kibet and animal keeper Christine Gichohi spent two weeks in Czechia studying each bongo’s personality. “Mountain bongos are the shiest antelopes,” Gichohi said. Maue was calm and friendly, Fitz aggressive, Kudu wary, and Bon64 curious but easily spooked.
The repatriation is the second wave of bongo transfers; the first brought 18 animals from North America in 2004. The new arrivals will strengthen the conservancy’s gene pool. “I want to see these animals in the wild. Not my grandchildren seeing them in books,” Kibet said.
