Keywords

1 The Rise and Fall of a Narrow Endemic

At the dawn of the new millennium, the national icon of Angola was believed to be extinct. The giant sable antelope (Hippotragus niger variani) is a distinctive and geographically isolated sub-species of the widely distributed sable antelope. British railway engineer, Thomas Varian, while surveying a route for the Benguela Railway, discovered the subspecies in the miombo woodlands of central Angola (Fig. 3.1). Having witnessed the ravages of Boer biltong hunters, Varian feared for the future this ‘finest antelope in Africa’. He immediately raised the alarm and mobilised the support and legislative intervention of the Portuguese High Commissioner for Angola, General Norton do Matos. Quick action saved the giant sable from the Boer biltong hunters of the 1920s. But half a century later, after decades of relative security, it was a civil war and its aftermath that spelt the giant sable’s imminent doom (Walker 2002; Huntley 2017).

Fig. 3.1
A photograph of a giant sable herd in a forest with various trees. The sable at the center has giant horns, and younger ones are scattered around in the woodlands.

A giant sable herd in the miombo woodlands of Luando Strict Nature Reserve, 1972

Full size image

In 1971, the giant sable population was estimated to be between 2000 and 2500 animals. The vast majority of these sable occupied the 828,000 ha Luando Strict Nature Reserve, with about 150 in Cangandala National Park, of 63,000 ha, just to the north, across the Luando river (Huntley 1974). The global population was confined to an area of less than 10,000 km2, with their closest relatives at least 500 km distant in the far corner of the Cuando Cubango (Fig. 3.2). The herds in Luando had been studied by American biologist Richard Estes in 1969/1970 (Estes and Estes 1974). Through the diligent shepherding of the study herds by park warden José Alves, the animals had become so habituated to vehicles that in 1971 one had to hoot at the resting herds to be able to drive though their territory (Huntley 1973, 2017). Little surprise then, that when civil war broke out in the mid-1970s, the giant sable provided easy prey to hunters (Huntley 1975). Dick Estes and park warden João Amaro had photographed a herd in Cangandala during a brief visit in 1982 (Estes 1983), but since that date no sighting of giant sable had been reported. By the end of the twentieth century it was feared that they were already extinct.

Fig. 3.2
A map of the southern part of South Africa marks countries with sable antelope populations in different color gradients. It marks Eastern Sable, Tanzanian sable, Zambian sable, Angolan Sable, and Southern Sable. The Angolan sable has the lowest population compared to others.

Sable antelope populations (and sub-species) as determined through nuclear DNA analysis. The population of the giant sable of Angola is striking in its isolation. (From Vaz Pinto (2019))

Full size image

International concern for the fate of the giant sable gained traction, especially with the publication of news reports of their possible demise. One book placed the giant sable on the conservation centre stage. The history of the discovery of the giant sable by Varian (1909) and the subsequent pursuit of trophies of the magnificent antelope by some of the world’s leading museums and aristocrat hunters, was related in fascinating and compelling detail by John Frederick Walker in his book A Certain Curve of Horn. Walker (2002) describes eight frustrating and unsuccessful visits to Angola in search of the sable. He finally saw his first specimen in 2009 - exactly a century after Varian’s 1909 report on the giant sable. Walker had joined the capture and translocation project led by an Angolan biologist, Pedro Vaz Pinto. It was the passion, tenacity and commitment of this one person – Pedro Vaz Pinto – that reversed the almost inevitably sad fate of the giant sable, in one of the great modern conservation successes of southern Africa.

2 Pursuit and Re-discovery

Much has changed for the better in Angola since the 1990s and early 2000s of Walker’s failed pursuits. For the privileged few who today can visit Cangandala and observe the healthy breeding herds grazing quietly in the park’s peaceful miombo woodlands, it is difficult to imagine the challenges that Vaz Pinto faced when he decided, in early 2003, to focus his energy on re-discovering the giant sable. Vaz Pinto made repeated visits to Cangandala, first for lengthy surveys on foot across the park with local rangers, covering hundreds of kilometres through the tall miombo woodlands and grasslands Figs. 3.3 and 3.4).

Fig. 3.3
An aerial photograph of woodlands and grasslands. A floodplain is observed at the front with forests in the distance.

The preferred habitat of giant sable – a mosaic of woodlands and open grasslands: Cangandala National Park. (Photo: Pedro Vaz Pinto)

Full size image
Fig. 3.4
A photograph of a forest with various trees and dense grass.

Open miombo woodland with a dense grass ground cover in Cangandala National Park. (Photo: Pedro Vaz Pinto)

Full size image

Lest one think that Vaz Pinto’s visits to Cangandala were quick rides out from the laboratory into the field, one needs to know that each visit involved a 10-hour drive along some of the worst, and most dangerous, roads in Angola. In the 1970s, the drive from Luanda to Malange would take me a pleasant 6 hours. But for the first decade after the year 2000, the Chinese were rebuilding and once again rebuilding the Malange road, the second busiest highway in Angola. Chinese civil engineers are not the best, and had obviously never encountered the notoriously mobile swelling and shrinking terras negras de Catete – the black cotton soils along the first 100 km of the route. The terras negras beat the lot of them. The road from Malange to Cangandala village, was worse. The once smooth tar macadam, had fallen apart, shredding the tyres of any over-hasty driver. So Pedro’s repeated visits to Cangandala were never a stroll in the park.

Failure to locate the sable visually persuaded Vaz Pinto to set up camera traps. Selecting a few salt licks – the old termitaria that form nutrient pools in the otherwise poor soils of the miombo – he set up three cameras. A month later, in pouring rain and struggling across the flooded rivers near Bola Cachasse, he returned to check the cameras. True to the perverse nature of working in the Angolan bush, only one had functioned. Ants had made nests in the transmitter of one camera, the other had a malfunctioning receiver. When he developed the films, all he found in the images were a few duiker and warthog. He then set up five cameras, and was back again 2 weeks later. This time the problems included termites – so he blocked the tiny holes in the equipment with chewing gum. On the next visit, he found that the camera beam was at too low an angle – so he adjusted the fitting. By the next visit grass and shrubs had grown up in front of the camera – so he chopped the lot down. When he sent the film off to Portugal the results presented four duiker, 13 bushbuck. One had to admire his tenacity. On 14 December 2004 he wrote that one of his trap camera’s infrared receivers had malfunctioned, recording 1900 events; another had battery problems. His e-mail read: “This is a game of patience. This activity has been physically and psychologically very demanding and it is frustrating not seeing the animals in so many visits and so many hours spent in the bush tracking them, but every time, finding fresh spoor and dung gives me the extra energy to keep going!”

Even low-level flights in a micro-light plane - including a crash which, in the words of a fellow biologist, left him ‘shaken, not stirred’– failed to yield a single sighting. Turning to molecular approaches, Vaz Pinto collected dung and hair samples snagged on bushes for genetic analysis. This initially gave unconvincing results. Two years of continuous but fruitless efforts, and then success.

In February 2005 Vaz Pinto’s camera traps revealed a group of female giant sable at a salt lick. Over the next 18 months, he made a further 15 visits to Cangandala, and through hundreds of camera trap photographs he built up an identity profile for 23 individuals. But he had still not seen a single sable with the naked eye. Nor were any male sable to be seen in the camera trap photos. Strangely, some of the female and young sable in the photos had what Vaz Pinto considered a ‘funny’ appearance. It was suggested by one of Vaz Pinto’s volunteers that these animals could perhaps be hybrids. In January 2006 he succeeded in tracking down the herd on foot, and could photograph the group. These were the first sable that he had been able to see live, unaided by trap cameras. But to his great alarm, he noted that although no adult male sable accompanied the herd, a single roan antelope bull had joined the herd. Here Vaz Pinto had the evidence needed to explain the ‘funny’ members of the herd. These were unmistakably hybrids – ‘robles’ – the progeny of a lone roan bull and the giant sable cows, bereft of the services of a giant sable bull. The shocking truth was that the giant sable population in Cangandala was facing extinction, not only from poaching, but also from hybridisation (Vaz Pinto 2007; Vaz Pinto et al. 2016). Immediate action was needed.

3 Capture and Relocation

With donor support, a 400-hectare quarantine area was fenced off. After protracted negotiations with government agencies, donors and an ever-growing team of volunteers, Vaz Pinto was in position to mount an operation to capture pure giant sable females and to place them in an area isolated from the roan antelope bull. At the same time, a giant sable male in Luando would be captured and translocated to the Cangandala group of pure females. By August 2009 the plans were in place. With the help of the Angolan Air Force, and veteran game capture expert Piet Morkel and helicopter pilot Barney O’Hara, the project began. The nine surviving ‘pure’ females within Cangandala and a mature male from Luando were captured and translocated to the quarantine area. (Fig. 3.5). Ten other sable were fitted with collars and VHF transmitters. In 2011 two satellite transmitters were fitted to two sable released in Luando. In July 2022, 15 satellite collars were fitted to 10 sable cows and 5 sable bulls, providing an invaluable data set on sable movements, their social behaviour, and to track any incidents of poaching.

Fig. 3.5
A photograph of Pedro Vaz Pinto with a giant sable. The giant sable is in a sitting position with Pinto on one knee and his hands holding a horn. There are various trees in the background.

Pedro Vaz Pinto with the first giant sable immobilised in Luando Strict Nature Reserve for translocation to Cangandala National Park, August 2012. (Photo: Harold Roberts)

Full size image

In the decade since the first capture success, the quarantine camp has been expanded to over 4300 ha and the captive breeding population has grown to over 100 animals. Despite ongoing poaching, regular satellite monitoring and ground patrols have brought a measure of protection to the Luando population, now estimated at over 200 animals. The combination of intense but arduous field work by one observer over nearly two decades (Vaz Pinto 2018), backed by molecular studies on the genetic diversity of sable antelope over their full range across Africa (Vaz Pinto et al. 2015), has added considerably to our understanding of the ecology, behaviour and evolution of this magnificent antelope.

While it might still be too early to celebrate total success in the rescue of giant sable from near extinction, the calamitous decline in the population has not only been halted, but has been effectively reversed. After decades of disinterested rule by the José Eduardo dos Santos regime, the giant sable is now enjoying active government support. Since 2017, the new President of the Republic, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço has transformed not only the country’s future, but also that of the national icon. The president has appointed a high-level commission to ensure continued support for the project, and a new Minister of Environment is lending support for the provision of facilities and training for the ranger staff at Cangandala. Luando remains without basic facilities and receives only limited government support, but reserve management plans are being developed.

What is not obvious, however, is the fragility of the entire rescue programme. It has been held together by a single passionate volunteer, with uncertain funding, government interference in his initial activities, the continued use of wire-noose and AK rifle poaching of the vulnerable herds at isolated waterholes, and erratic payment of salaries and servicing of facilities for the small corps of rangers. On the positive side, Pedro Vaz Pinto has enjoyed excellent support from the Angolan Air Force, from successive provincial governors, from the local community and from dozens of committed volunteers. By training and inspiring a small team of ‘sable shepherds’ from the first days of the project, Vaz Pinto has attracted the trust and loyalty of the local community, gaining their support as the eyes, ears and actors in the conservation campaign.

4 Lessons Learned

The success of the project can be attributed to multiple factors:

  • The existence of international concern regarding the fate of an iconic species.

  • The presence of a young, energetic, resilient, charismatic and totally committed conservation biologist who independently and without any secure institutional base, took on the challenge to save the giant sable.

  • A highly responsive, adaptive, and opportunistic project management model that allowed rapid maneuverability under complex and ever-changing situations.

  • A sustained two-decade long focus for two decades on the key objective of saving the giant sable from extinction.

  • The development of a wide base of volunteer and donor support within Angola which shared a long-term vision.

  • The availability of highly skilled and experienced technical support from within the region (Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe) for the capture and safe translocation of many dozens of animals without a single loss of life.

  • The foresight on the part of the project leader to gain the trust and active participation of the local human population that shares the giant sable’s habitat and restricted geographic range.

The Giant Sable Project demonstrates the concept of strategic opportunism. In its simplicity, focus and the tenacity and adaptability of its leader, it is a model of what can work in Africa.