Habitat requirements of the Mhorr gazelle: What does this species need to survive in the wild?

Abstract

The mhorr gazelle (Nanger dama mhorr) is the westernmost-distributed mama gazelle subspecies and it has been considered extinct in the wild since 1968. Much of the survival of this subspecies depends on its ex situ captive population and future reintroduction projects. However, this subspecies disappeared before it could be well studied; and most of the knowledge regarding the mhorr’s ecological requirements in its native range comes from early observations in the 40s and 50s and are general description of their native habitats. In 2015 a group of mhorr gazelle was released in the Safia Nature Reserve (Morocco) as the first step to establish a long-sustainable wild mhorr gazelle population. This project offered an opportunity to determine the habitat requirements of the mhorr in terms of surface area (size), landscape and the vegetation’s characteristics. The results come from seven (2.5) collared adult mhorr gazelles. Once released into the wild, the gazelles explored extensive areas in all directions around the point of release but they established their territories - understood as the home range - just to the north of the point of release, far from any human presence (borders or roads) and in flat areas where the acacia tree cover was abundant; the core areas were settled also in the most flat and vegetated areas inside the home range. All the gazelles except one female occupy the same region with a very high overlap in their home range (between 28.4 and 75.8%). Regarding the extent of the home range (average 119.9 ± 27.5 km2) and core areas (average 20 ± 4.2 km2) depends on time of sampling and highlight the differences between the space needed by the mhorr gazelles to satisfy their needs in the wild and the space provided for the species in previous reintroduction projects in fenced-off areas.