Scimitar horned oryx born at Orana Park

Press, 3 January 1980, Page 4

Scimitar horned oryx born at Orana Park

Otana Park staff are pleased to announce the birth of their first scimitar horned oryx at Antelope House; Orana Park.

The tiny honey-coloured antelope, a member of .an endangered species, weighed 10 kg at birth and is doing well. The park staff are not yet sure what sex it is, but they hope that it is a female for the sake of their breeding programme..

“Not that we’ve got anything againstmales,” said the park’s director (Mr P.. Garland) yesterday; “But you can understand that a female is better for breeding.” The baby oryx’s parents were part of a consignment of six antelope which were imported from London by Orana Park in December, 1978. at a cost of 340,000. Four of the six are .of the scimitar horned variety and two are niglai antelopes. Their importation into New Zealand

was part of a world-wide impetus to establish the threatened species in different areas.

If all goes well, the new addition to the herd, the first scimitar horned oryx to be born in the Southern Hemisphere, should grow up to be white with a chestnut chest and shoulder and have long curved horns, like its parents.

Mr Garland said that the park staff were especially pleased that the baby oryx had been born in mid-sum-mer, as it. showed that the group had settled/down in New Zealand to the changing seasonal pattern. < ■ In ■ Lohdon, the middle of summer was June, and if the baby oryx had been born in June in New Zealand it would not have had much of a chance of survival, because of the cold, he said.

The species originates from the Sahara Desert.