The re-introduction of Arabian oryx to the Al Wusta Wildlife Reserve in Oman: 30 years on

Summary

The Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx), extinct in the wild in Oman by 1972, became the subject of the world's first successful large-mammal reintroduction when Sultan Qaboos bin Said's Arabian Oryx Project released captive-bred animals into the Al Wusta Wildlife Reserve starting in 1982, growing the wild population past 400 by the mid-1990s. Poaching, enabled by the reserve's unfenced 34,000 km2 size, then caused a severe population collapse, prompting a 1998 captive breeding program at the Jaaluni enclosure that grew from 38 to 381 oryx by 2011, including a zero-breeding period from 2005 to 2010 to control captive numbers, plus a 100-oryx royal donation. Since 2009, the reserve has been fenced down to 2,824 km2 with a roughly 230 km perimeter and an anti-poaching security force, and in early 2011 about 60 oryx were released into the newly fenced area, coinciding fortunately with rain after prolonged drought; the herd is closely monitored with a maintained water trough. Major difficulties included the earlier impossibility of patrolling the vast unfenced original reserve, uneven local job distribution among tribes, and the risk that fencing, while solving poaching, could now trap animals during future droughts as seen with mass die-offs in a similarly fenced Saudi Arabian reserve. The project rates itself Successful, citing the species' IUCN reclassification from Extinct in the Wild to Vulnerable and the population's renewed growth under close monitoring.