Oryx to Elephants: On Wildlife Conservation

Our tires plunged into a liquid-filled ditch as we passed through a wooden gate opened by a man in a hickory-colored dishdasha. We had arrived at the Bait Al Barakah Breeding Center, and our vehicle had been disinfected against foot and mouth disease.

To get this far behind the nearly 20-foot-high sandstone walls of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said's private grounds in Oman, where the general public is not typically allowed, the Environmental Society of Oman (ESO) had navigated our pre-approved access. When that access was questioned, the ESO representative negotiated at the semi-truck-sized gate with the machine-gun-toting guards dressed in green camouflage and burgundy berets. ESO had also arranged our meeting with the lead veterinarian.

The vet, a swift-talking, short man in tan trousers and a blue-checkered button-up shirt, offered a hello and a brief introduction before we were off. Despite his stature, I rushed like I was chasing after someone twice my height. We passed through another gate. Less than 100 feet away stood a herd of Arabian oryx, a side shot of which could easily spin unicorn lore.

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but this trip would become the place where my hobbyist passion for conservation would begin to encounter the challenges of reality.

According to the IUCN Red List, the Arabian oryx became extinct in the wild in the early 1970s. Fortunately, the Phoenix Zoo had established a “World Herd” ten years previously. The conservation efforts saw success, and oryx were reintroduced to many countries, including Oman, in 1982. In the years that followed, the wild herd in Oman faced issues of poaching. Live capture and the breeding center are part of the continued effort to expand herds locally and support conservation efforts worldwide.

Our guide explained that the center was initially created to protect the Arabian tahir from the same dangers that the oryx had faced. Among the oryx were mountain gazelles so small that even into adulthood the doe-eyed animals emulated youngsters.

The tour continued with the vet waving at our ten-ish person group to keep up. We were interrupted by the news that two honey badgers had escaped their enclosure. The vet complained that despite his numerous requests for a hole between the enclosure and its concrete base to be repaired, it had not been done. He explained how vicious badgers could be, but we walked on, and soon we were standing outside the empty cage watching men repair the holes, and then our tour continued.

While we walked, an aspiring animal welfare student in our group continually challenged our guide’s knowledge and experience. Her attack style led me to wonder if he would ever allow a public group to visit again. I struggled to understand why she couldn’t simply ask her questions with kindness. I wish I had asked.

The photographers among us tried to ignore her and whispered about aperture and shutter speed. Young Omani men in the group translated for us when the guide spoke to employees in Arabic along the way.

A green-coated chain link fence housed a handful of cheetahs less than six months old. They had been rescued when smugglers attempted to bring them across the border. With us outside the cage, the cheetahs seemed fascinated by our arrival, but when three of us were allowed to enter, they seemed less impressed with us, as though humans inside the cage were less interesting than those outside. The vet was hopeful that they would be returned to the wild. I suppose that depends on how soon they are reintroduced and if they can learn to hunt for themselves.

Many enclosures held creatures I had never seen before, like the sand cat, caracal, Arabian wolf, sand fox, and a variety of birds including regional vultures and falcons, but the best was yet to come. I approached an enclosure with large rocks nearly head height, and read the words “Arabian leopard.” I hadn’t expected the endangered animal, but almost immediately made eye contact with shining eyes staring back.

I heard a low growl, and a roar erupted from a second leopard as he shot from a previously invisible crevice behind a rock to confront the man beside me who presented a threat from the leopard’s perspective. The leopard’s body was inches from my face. His coat looked like creamy caramel, and I imagined it was soft like silk. His eyes wise like an old soul. The man he lunged at responded with a chuckle. I wondered if he had taunted the leopard or what the leopard knew that I didn’t. The laugh caused me, once again, to wonder why I felt reverence for this experience, while others acted like we were on a field trip at the park.

We were only allowed to stay briefly because the vet wanted to avoid any further disturbances to the leopards. In grave danger of extinction, it felt like a privilege to see one. At the time of our visit, the breeding center was building larger enclosures for all of the animals and had goals for a leopard-breeding program. I wonder how all of that has progressed.

When we left the center, we traveled back through the expansive property between the breeding center and the front gate, and as we exited, I felt hopeful that the world could save large mammals, and wondered if private centers would be the best way.

***

It was shortly after this visit that a friend and I mused how we both wished we had been to the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic before four northern white rhinoceros were relocated from there to Kenya. Back then, Sudan, the rhino, wasn’t famous outside of conservation circles. My friend and I love wildlife, and we occasionally discuss the challenges of conservation like lack of funding, social unrest, or lack of education.

Over time, Sudan became an Internet sensation, was labeled the “World’s Most Eligible Bachelor,” and eventually died in 2018.

In the October 2019 issue of National Geographic, the publication explored extinction and “what we lose when an animal goes extinct.” With only two northern white rhinoceros females left in the world, there are plans to attempt in vitro fertilization. I hope it works, but I can’t help but wonder if there is credibility to the idea that animals in captivity are not the same as their wild counterparts.

***

Nine hours’ drive away from the location where those exact rhinos currently reside, standing on the seat of a safari vehicle in the middle of Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, surrounded by African elephants, was the next time I faced a conservation reality. Emotions caught in my throat as a mother elephant escorted her month-old baby nearby. They passed within feet of our vehicle, and I felt a complex shiver of fear and joy with a wild pachyderm so close. I also felt a sickening weight as I considered the locals whose village we had driven past that morning.

That morning we had driven through the national park gates and along a gravel road. On the right side, a few hundred meters away, was a school; on the left, the unfenced boundary that was the national park. I wondered how conservation efforts could thrive in this scenario. I asked my safari guide if lions ever ate anyone.

“Only at night,” the driver stated. He explained that a man walking alone or riding a bike after dark was always a possible target. I asked if it happened often. The driver replied that it happened often enough, but that the government didn’t tolerate people publishing the news because it was bad press.

I thought about conservation efforts I had known about over the years and about those villagers, while I watched the elephants graze and splash nearby. I considered the elephants and the reality that roads had interfered with migration, and that villages this close to parks increased the risk of local and wildlife conflict. I thought about the villagers, specifically the mothers, and their desire to protect and feed their families. If I had children in that village, and there were elephants and human conflicts threatening their safety, it’s hard to imagine how conservation education would make me feel any better. Communities like the one I saw that day had to focus on survival, like access to shelter, nutrition, and clean water.

I also thought of a story I had read recently in a Tanzanian newspaper about a baby elephant that had accidentally been trapped in a hole in a village. Its family eventually abandoned it, and the villagers gave it water and protected it from the heat until authorities arrived to assist. Without education from its mother, it is unlikely to survive in the wild.

***

It is now, years later, that I can begin to understand why I had felt so disconnected from the varied reactions at the Sultan’s Breeding Center. At the time, I could only see one viewpoint, that most attempts at conservation were noble and had unquestionable merit, but that was naïve. It’s increasingly clear that conservation, like humanity, is imperfect.

I wish I had asked the aspiring animal rights activist why she felt the need to be so aggressive. Or asked the vet how the center planned to reintroduce the cheetahs to the wild, or what it meant to breed wild cats in captivity. I continued to wonder, If they couldn’t roam free, were they the same animals?

The day I saw the elephants, I remember thinking that, even as a person passionate about wildlife conservation, it was hard to imagine that poaching could ever cull herds as large as these. It seemed impossible, and yet I know it occurs. What about governmental culling of herds? How does that play a part in this discussion?

The more animals I’ve encountered, the more conservation programs I’ve explored, and the more books I have read, the more confused I have become. Wildlife conservation is necessary, and an honorable goal, but humans are flawed, and intentions are often misguided.

How can we bring together all the aspects of conservation efforts, like hunting, activism, science, national parks, and local experience, to better understand what we are trying to do? Why do we fight each other while we are also trying to weigh tough questions: Is wildlife conservation always valid? Are there times when it is not? Why do we let some species go and fight for others? How do we choose? Why are we choosing?

As scientific knowledge continually expands, the issues of conservation become increasingly complex, and it is only with compassion for all viewpoints, wildlife, and each other that any of it stands a chance.

Elephant, Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

Portions of this essay were initially published in a two-part post on March 10/11, 2015. The text has been edited dramatically, with updates to theme and style, and with the addition of new material.

Conservation, Explore, Most Popular, EssaysNicole HansenJanuary 10, 2020Conservation, Animals, Oman, Endangered Species, Arabian Oryx, Arabian Tahr