Trail Camera Photos Capture Rare Antelopes in a Kenya Forest Where Conservationists Once Feared They Had Vanished

Fewer than 100 mountain bongos are thought to live in the wild, and the new discovery reveals a crucial habitat for the critically endangered creatures

Carlyn Kranking | Associate Web Editor, Science

June 8, 2026 4:38 p.m.

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New images from trail cameras reveal three critically endangered antelopes known as mountain bongos wandering through a forest in Kenya. The photographs capture one of Africa’s rarest mammals at a site where it had not been documented for years, offering a ray of hope for a creature that has nearly vanished from the wild.

“The excitement in camp was unbelievable when we first looked through the photos,” Oscar Dyer, director of operations at the Mountain Bongo Project (MBP), the only conservation group dedicated solely to protecting the bongos, says in a statement. “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.”

The mountain (or eastern) bongo is a chestnut-colored antelope with big ears and vertical white stripes. Game hunting, disease, habitat destruction and disturbance by humans have driven the creatures to near-extinction over the past century. Illegal logging remains a threat, and the bongo’s preferred habitats—with rich, volcanic soil and a water supply—are coveted for agriculture.

While zoos and sanctuaries worldwide house about 700 mountain bongos, fewer than 100 exist in the wild. The population stronghold for the wild antelopes is the Aberdares, a volcanic mountain range in central Kenya. The new photographs capture bongos in a remnant forest fragment of Maasai Mau, located about 125 miles from the Aberdares population. Bongos had not been seen in this region of Maasai Mau for more than five years.

The observations “provide direct evidence that these extremely rare antelopes are surviving in places where conservationists feared they had once disappeared,” Chris McGovern, an animal care specialist at the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance who was not involved with the discovery, tells Smithsonian magazine. For such an uncommon animal, he adds, “every confirmed sighting is valuable.”

Despite concerns that the bongos in this part of Maasai Mau had gone locally extinct, rangers with the MBP, who have a deep knowledge of the areas they patrol, suspected some of the animals were evading detection. Alongside Tommaso Sandri, a Chester Zoo conservationist and MBP Advisory Council member, conservation teams chose locations where they thought any surviving bongos were most likely to trigger the trail cameras.

“As the Mau was historically bongo territory, and its forest fragments suit [bongos’] needs, they continued targeted monitoring in the area,” Stuart Nixon, the Chester Zoo’s regional field program senior manager for Africa, says to Smithsonian magazine. But doing this work isn’t easy. “Even within these remnant forests, bongos are difficult to find, let alone see—they are very shy, and it’s difficult terrain.”

Although the photographs were captured earlier this year, they were stored locally on the trail cameras—so the conservation teams couldn’t see them until they trekked back out to the field and searched through the data. “This is tough work, as the areas are remote, rugged and densely forested,” Nixon says.

Rangers say the photographs show an adult male bongo as well as a young male and female. The adult had likely been spotted for the first time in 2018, and the fact that it seemingly managed to stay hidden for years suggests that others might have done the same.

The discovery is important because it calls attention to a new site that hosts the antelopes—one that doesn’t yet have strong regulations to preserve it. “Unlike Aberdares, Maasai Mau is not a national park,” Sandri says in the statement.

Rangers with the MBP have been patrolling and monitoring the area to protect the newly spotted bongos. But conservationists have publicized the discovery because “the best chance for bongos is to highlight the need to protect the forests where they’re found, before these habitats disappear,” the Chester Zoo writes in a comment on Instagram. “Chester Zoo and MBP are both keen to push for formalized protection for Maasai Mau,” Nixon says.

Beyond working to preserve the bongo’s wild habitats, a network of conservationists at zoos and sanctuaries in the United States, Europe and Kenya have been breeding bongos for eventual release into the wild. McGovern says the first zoo-born bongos were sent from the U.S. to Kenya in 2004. The Denver Zoo, where he works, has had 11 bongo births—including one earlier this year—and the offspring of those animals might one day return to Africa, too.

In March, the Chester Zoo, which is coordinating a breeding program across European zoos, sent four male bongos to the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy. The bongos will add genetic diversity to the Kenya sanctuary’s breeding population and help boost the animals’ numbers.

So far, the Kenya conservancy has surpassed its goal of breeding 100 bongos in human care. Now, it’s looking toward a new milestone: reaching 750 bongos by 2050, as Robert Aruho, head of conservancy at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy, said in a statement in March.

“Mountain bongos are a flagship species for the montane forest ecosystems of Kenya,” McGovern says. The antelopes “play an important role in the ecosystem as seed dispersers and part of the natural food chain.”

Each sighting of a wild bongo, he adds, is another data point that helps assess population trends and whether conservation programs are working. The photographs also highlight the need for protection, as MBP rangers have found signs of illegal logging as close as 1.25 miles from where one of these bongos was observed.

Documenting these mountain bongos “is huge news,” Sandri says in the statement. “It’s a testament to the persistence of the MBP rangers who work in incredibly difficult and isolated conditions to monitor and protect this antelope.”

Carlyn Kranking | | Read More

Carlyn Kranking is Smithsonian magazine's associate web editor for science.