One of Africa’s rarest creatures is caught on a trail camera – hundreds of kilometres from where it was expected to be
Africa’s rarest antelope – the mountain bongo – has been caught on a trail camera in an area where it was thought to be locally extinct.
After detecting the elusive mammal in four isolated areas eight years ago, conservationists were concerned that the wild population had shrunk to a small range in Kenya’s Aberdare mountains.
Bongos face threats from habitat destruction and disturbance, and their shyness, and extreme rarity, have made them historically difficult to track.
Now, trail camera images show these creatures exploring a forest in Maasai Mau – around 200km from the known Aberdares population.
The mature male captured on camera was likely first identified in 2018 by Tommaso Sandri, a Mountain Bongo Project (MBP) Advisory Council member and Chester Zoo conservationist.
He suggested that if the animal had remained hidden for this amount of time, then other bongos may also be in the area. This was confirmed when the camera captured more images. Markings analysis has confirmed that these show a young male and a young female.
A young female mountain bongo was also captured on the camera traps. Credit: Chester Zoo and Mountain Bongo Project
Unlike Aberdares, Maasai Mau is not a national park and the bongos discovered there do not have the same protections.
“The excitement in camp was unbelievable when we first looked through the photos,” says Oscar Dyer, director of operations at MBP.
“This image is the result of years of hard work by our rangers on the ground in one of Kenya’s most inaccessible forests. Seeing a bongo here again is incredibly exciting – and it reinforces our determination to continue searching, protecting this forest and finding evidence of more bongos in the area.”
These images come at a time when recent data suggest an uncertain future for the species.
In 2025, an AI monitoring survey was carried out by the UK’s Chester Zoo, following guidance from the MBP and with the support of the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy (MKWC) and Kenya Wildlife Service, to monitor bongo populations.
It found that only 28 individuals were in the Aberdare stronghold.
Mountain Bongo Project rangers check a camera trap in the field. Credit: Mountain Bongo Project
“It’s difficult to put a finger on why numbers aren’t increasing,” explains Stuart Nixon, Chester Zoo’s regional field programme senior manager.
“Surveys show there are habitats they could expand into. Perhaps their numbers are so low that a natural level of predation is depressing the population. So, we have a population that’s stable, but small and ageing.”
There are around 900 bongos in sanctuaries (like Aberdare, which is operated by the MKWC) and zoos. Currently, organisations are looking at both protecting wild populations and reintroducing bongos to the wild as conservation methods.
In 2025 and 2026, mountain bongos bred as part of conservation centres and zoo conservation programmes were translocated to help reinforce the sanctuary population in Kenya.
“The Mau population represents a significant genetic pool for mountain bongos and it is therefore vital for long-term conservation,” says Robert Aruho, the head of MKWC.
Their cousins, the lowland bongo, are classified as Near Threatened with fewer than 30,000 wild individuals.
