Sahel
Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Reserve
Where the scimitar-horned oryx came back
- Area
- 77,950 km²
- Températures
- 12° / 40°C
- Region
- Sahel
Created in 1969, the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve is one of Africa's largest protected areas. Its acacia steppe, grazed by nomadic herders, shelters addax, dama gazelle, dorcas gazelle, red-necked ostrich — and, since 2016, the reintroduced scimitar-horned oryx.
History of the place
The scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah) once ranged across the whole Sahelian belt, from Senegal to Sudan, in herds thousands strong. Motorised hunting and drought wiped it out: the last confirmed wild sighting dates from the late 1980s, and the IUCN declared it Extinct in the Wild in 2000.
The species survived only in captivity. From 2016, a programme led by the Chadian government, the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi and the Sahara Conservation Fund began releasing oryx from a carefully managed world herd into the reserve. The animals were acclimatised in enclosures before release, then tracked by satellite collar.
The first births in the wild came in 2017. In 2023 the IUCN downlisted the scimitar-horned oryx from Extinct in the Wild to Endangered — the first such downlisting for a large mammal. The wild population now exceeds 500.
The reserve also remains one of the last strongholds of the addax, among the most threatened of Saharan antelopes, and of the dama gazelle, Chad's national emblem.
Galerie