If current trends continue, the gerenuk may eventually disappear from large parts of its present distribution due to hunting, human encroachment, deforestation, civil conflicts, agricultural expansion, and drought.
The gerenuk can withstand hunting pressures to some degree which has enabled it to survive widely in regions such as the Ogaden in the complete absence of protection.
The gerenuk’s habitat is subject to encroachment by increasing numbers of pastoralists and cutting of trees for firewood and charcoal. Civil conflicts, wars, and unrest have affected much of the range in Somalia and the Ogaden over recent decades.
If current trends continue, the gerenuk may eventually disappear from large parts of its present distribution until it is largely restricted to effectively protected and managed areas of suitable habitat. Such areas currently comprise only a small part of its remaining range. The largest protected population, in Tsavo National Park, has been reduced by rinderpest and drought. Agricultural expansion, for example in the southern Masai steppe is encroaching on their habitat, but most of Gerenuk’s range is too arid to support agriculture.
• Image | ©️ Nathan Rupert, Some Rights Reserved, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
• Sources | (East, 1999; Foley, et al., 2014; IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2016)
