Save the Palanca Negra

Last Thursday, there was a presentation on ‘Tracking Palanca Negras’ at the Viking Club. The presenter was a Pedro Vaz Pinto, Co-ordinator of the Palanca Negra Conservation Programme and Environmental Advisor for the Catholic University Centre for Scientific Studies and Research. He spoke about the programme’s success in proving that the palanca negra (giant sable - endemic to Angola) has survived 27 years of civil war, through pictures and video footage captured using stealth cameras placed around the Cangandala National Park in central Angola. He also had pictures of the many beautiful plants, reptiles, insects, birds and the larger mammals that exist/live in the park – most of which none of us had ever seen before (e.g. mushrooms the size of a small umbrella!) and some have yet to be discovered.

A bit of background on the palanca negra (hippotragus niger variani) – this animal is a famous Angolan symbol. It features in the logos of the national airline TAAG and national football team. The giant sable is the last big antelope to be discovered in Africa. (There are four races of sable in Africa: common sable, kirk sable, shimba sable and giant sable – of which the last is said to be the most majestic). The giant sable’s horns can grow to 65 inches or longer; the biggest one ever photographed had horns spanning 70 inches, I think in the 1970s. Only the bull is black; females are reddish-brown. In Angola, there are herds in the Cangandala National Park and Loando Reserve.

Back to the story. So after no sightings since 1982, Pinto managed to capture some pictures in Cangandala in 2005. They found one herd! (There are also other herds thought to be living in the Luando Reserve for example but these haven’t been tracked yet because the park is still inaccessible by road). They were cautiously optimistic – these animals are still on critically endangered. We were also shown some video footage – which was fantastic.

But there is a twist in the tale. They noticed some in the herd looked a little strange. It was only when they saw the dominant male did they realise he was "a wolf in sheep's clothing"... i.e. a roan antelope! And he had taken over the female herd (of about 10) and cross-bred with them. This is extremely rare – only one case has ever been reported, in South Africa.

The roan x sable hybrids have floppy ears, different face markings (longer white stripe on face and darker front) and are believed to be sterile. There had been a sable bull (male) in the herd until around 2005 but it disappeared – killed by poachers probably. And the roan bull had probably been ejected from another roan herd by a dominant bull.

So the sable herd has 10 females, some (sterile?) hybrid males and females, and the roan bull with no adult sable bull in sight. Pretty depressing prospects!

But there is a glimmer of hope. There are three young pure males in the herd also, probably sons of the presumed dead sable bull. And there could be pure bulls in the Luando National Park although these have not yet been seen.

So the programme is going to try to stop this cross-breeding, which would lead to a ‘dead end’ (unsustainable fertility rate). In the next few months, the conservationists will capture the hybrids in the Cangandala Park and neuter them (just in case) and remove the roan bull from the park so that the young thoroughbreds can eventually take over the herd. They are also considering bringing in a bull from Loando. They will put collars on the animals and track their co-ordinates in real time. A gate will be built around the park although the sables do not tend to migrate. They have hired and trained local people as rangers, to monitor the park and stop poaching.

I asked Pinto if he had noticed any behavioural differences between the hybrids and pure sable, and if he got a sense that they mixed freely. He said he couldn’t tell as most of the research was through still photos.

Some people were shocked that he was so anti-hybrid (“they are ugly”), and they felt that the line of crossbreds should not be killed off. But Pinto said if that were to happen, the herd would die out because it didn’t look like the hybrids were breeding. And he’d been asked before to leave things to nature/natural selection and use it as a case study of how cross-breeding can eradicate a species…but he wasn’t going to let that happen to the palanca negra. Too right!

So, citizens of Angola, protect the palanca negra, your beautiful national symbol!