Conservation Wins Again: Once-Endangered Gazelle Now Thrives!

After half a century of conservation efforts, the mhorr gazelle has officially avoided extinction, and the once-endangered antelope is now thriving in the southern part of Spain.

José Antonio Valverde, army captain, photographer and volunteer at the Andalusian national park of Doñana, launched a rescue operation to transfer the last of the gazelles to Spain after seeing them in the wild in Africa in 1970 and learning about their threatening numbers. Fifty years on, “the programs have managed to save the species from extinction,” says Teresa Abáigar, a researcher at the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria University.

In 1971, the first mhorr – also known as Dama gazelles – arrived at the Doñana park, followed by another 18 within four years. Today, more than 4,000 have been reintroduced in Tunisia, Morocco, and Senegal.