The Giant Sable remains endangered
Ashley Stimpson’s recent, riveting reporting in Atlas Obscura focuses on biologist Pedro Vaz Pinto, who spearheaded efforts to save Angola’s walking emblem, the giant sable antelope. Against all odds, the 2009 expedition he headed to find and capture some to create a captive breeding herd, succeeded.
“Though Vaz Pinto has enjoyed many magical moments over the course of his 20-year mission to save the charismatic ungulate, the creature’s future remains fraught,” Stimpson writes. There are only about a hundred of them in Cangandala National Park, perhaps only 300 total in Angola, which is struggling economically, and poaching is on the rise as people struggle to survive.
Diamond Mining Threatens Giant Sable Antelope
The magnificent giant sable antelope, a critically endangered sable subspecies that happens to be the national animal of Angola, needs all the help it can get to survive. Only about a hundred of these creatures are left. Diamond mining in its long-isolated habitat could be the death-knell for this walking emblem.
Colin McClelland, reporter for Bloomberg News in Angola, has broken a story on state gem company Endiama EP, which had drawn up plans to expand diamond mining into the Luando Reserve, critical environment for the giant sable. McClelland interviewed Endiama spokesman Antonio Freitas, who stated that “Endiama’s main goal is to protect the palanca negra [giant sable].”
Angolan biologist Pedro Vaz Pinto, who has rescued a small number of the animals for a captive breeding program nearby, says he’s encouraged by Endiama’s response, but warns that “a concession in that location must be blocked,” as it would result in roads, bridges, and camps being built in what is now undisturbed giant sable habitat.
Click here for a link to this story.
JFW Giant Sable antelope lecture at the Explorers Club
On January 10, 2011, I’ll be giving a presentation at the Explorers Club on the dramatic rescue of the critically endangered giant sable antelope of Angola. I’ll be showing photographs I took from the expedition that succeeded in pulling this legendary creature back from the brink of oblivion—a conservation triumph.
Time: 6:00 pm
Place: The Explorers Club, 46 East 70th Street, New York NY
The event is open to the public. Full details here.
Giant Sable: Antelope from the Ashes, Part II
Part II of my two-part series, “Antelope from the Ashes” has just come out in the July issue of Africa Geographic. Click here to read the final installment of my account of the dramatic rescue of Africa’s most spectacular antelope, Angola’s giant sable.
John Frederick Walker 
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