Mountain Reedbuck: A Fifty-Year Personal Retrospective

In 1969 I started a graduate study of mountain reedbuck in South Africa. One day earlier this year I looked at the calendar and realized 50 years had passed. I thought I might try to see how the conclusions I reached in my Ph.D. dissertation held up to the passage of time. Mountain reedbuck live in small groups on marginal lands in southern Africa, East Africa, and a small area in West Africa. The males have short horns so I figured they would not be attractive to trophy hunters. They occupy rugged terrain that is unsuitable for farming and not great for grazing so I figured agricultural interests wouldn't see them as competitors. They are relatively small (70 pounds or so),their meat is only moderately palatable, and they live in habitats that are difficult to hunt in so I thought few people would choose to pursue them for protein. All in all, I thought they had a better chance of surviving the modern world than most other African antelope species. I was wrong. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) placed them on the Red List as endangered in 2017. This book explores the reasons mountain reedbuck have not fared well in the 21st century.