Humans are the Sable antelope’s only real threat. The giant sable antelope subspecies is listed as endangered because of trophy hunting and habitat loss.#ConservationTuesday

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The Sable is a barrel-chested rotund antelope with a long face, short neck, and dark mane. They have impressive ringed horns rising vertically to curve backwards. When arching their necks and standing with their heads high and tails outstretched, these antelope look like horses. In this position they appear larger than they actually are. The males keep this position even when galloping, the arched neck being important to manifest dominance. Sables change color as they grow older. Calves are born with a reddish-brown color and virtually no markings. White markings appear as they grow older and their coat becomes darker, and the older the animal is, the more striking is the contrast.

Sable antelopes are herbivorous. They are specialized browsing animals and feed upon foliage, leaves, medium length grass, and herbs, especially those growing on termite mounds. The leaves of trees provide 90% of their diet.

Ask any lowveld old-timer and they will tell you that sable antelope were once so common in the central lowveld that landowners used to regularly shoot them for meat for their staff. Now a live sable is worth R150,000 on auction, and the numbers of sable, roan and tsessebe roaming wild in the veld are so low that they are verging on local extinction. Intensive farming efforts are keeping the overall number of animals in South Africa up, but the future of these species hangs in the balance in this country.

The Kruger National Park (KNP) is home to roan, sable, eland and tsessebe, but a continued downward spiral in their numbers is causing a lot of head scratching amongst scientists and park management as they try to figure out what is causing the population to shrink. In the case of roan antelope, their decline has been so dramatic that park management has protected some of the animals in a 300-hectare enclosure as part of their conservations efforts.

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