Roan Antelope Hunted by Poachers

The Roan Antelope is one of the animals commonly hunted by poachers in Nigeria. So many are being killing and traded by the bush meat merchants . Skin and Head of Roan Antelope Unfortunately , sometimes the animal is already killed before the security operatives of the National parks get there. The Roan Antelope formerly occurred very widely in the savanna woodlands and grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa, but has been eliminated from large parts of its former range. Remarkably, the species remains locally common in West and Central Africa, while in East and southern Africa, the traditional antelope strongholds, the species is now very rare. The species is now locally extinct in Burundi, Eritrea and possibly Gambia. It was also eliminated from Swaziland and later reintroduced to the privately owned Mkhaya Nature Reserve. The Roan Antelope has been eliminated from large parts of its former range because of poaching and loss of habitat to the expansion of settlement, and now survives mainly in and around protected areas and in other areas with low densities of people and livestock. Its persistence in West Africa is probably due to its ability to withstand illegal hunting pressures better than many other large herbivores, especially the more water dependant and more sedentary species which are more exposed to poaching (East 1999; Chardonnet and Crosmary in press).