Revered by the Indigenous Mbuti and Efe tribes as a spiritual symbol and uplifted by the Democratic Republic of Congo as a national one, the okapi is deserving of a nickname as mystical as “forest unicorn.” The dark-colored ungulates are docile, elusive, and characterized by the zebra-like stripes on their legs and rump, though they’re most closely related to giraffes. Found in the DRC’s Ituri Forest, a part of the Congo Basin rainforest, they’re popular favorites at zoos around the world.
But the okapi, for all its charm, is in more trouble today than it was a decade ago. For a peaceful creature, it’s surrounded by human violence that has put both the animal and the people who live near it in a state of ongoing turmoil. Illegal Chinese mines, poaching, deforestation, armed militia groups, and now a new market for so-called okapi oil have further imperiled what was already a threatened species.
“We know what they need, and we know what harms them,” John Lukas, who founded the Okapi Wildlife Reserve and Okapi Conservation Project, told Mongabay. But there’s one major blind spot: “Nobody knows how many okapi there are.”
Scientists estimate there are anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 okapi in the wild, but those estimates are about a decade old; Lukas says there are an estimated 3,000 in Okapi Wildlife Reserve alone. It’s near-impossible for people to safely survey the Ituri Forest for a more accurate population estimate. Instead, the nonprofit Okapi Conservation Project and its partners are focusing on what they can protect: the forest.
Dodging conflict for okapi
On June 24, 2024, a crowd gathered around a tree in the DRC’s Okapi Wildlife Reserve with watery eyes. Planting this tree was a bittersweet symbol of life in the spot where two guards were set aflame in a horrific 2012 militia attack that killed seven people and all 14 resident okapi, including a 6-month-old calf.
Twelve years later, Lukas says the Okapi Wildlife Reserve is better patrolled and more insulated from violence, but not entirely. Just three weeks prior to Lukas’s conversation with Mongabay, he said there had been two attacks on guard posts, killing one ranger and wounding another. The United Nations and DRC military have struggled to keep insurgents at bay over the past 15 to 20 years, and the capital city, Kinshasa, is too far away for help. “It’s been inescapable,” Lukas said of the violence.
It’s a place of devastating dichotomy. The Congo Basin is among the most biodiverse places on the planet, yet there’s widespread violence. Beneath the soil lies $34 trillion worth of critical minerals — and yet, “none of that has benefited [local] people,” Lukas said.
Illegal mining, especially for gold, has become a more serious issue over the past decade. In Okapi Wildlife Reserve alone, rangers estimate there are about 100 illegal gold mines. Not only are okapi sensitive to noisy human disturbance and loss of habitat, they’re also a valuable target for the illegal miners, who are often poor and poach wildlife for meat or to sell their skins and fat. Armed militias often live off these illegal mines, too, killing and raping members of local communities who then flee to other areas. Mitigating the violence and environmental destruction would require large-scale, national government involvement, Lukas said, since some mines are run by foreign corporations.
Conservation Project.
A new market for okapi oil, for unknown and unproven medicinal purposes, has created another financial incentive to kill the endangered animal. The “oil,” which Lukas says is probably fat or bone marrow, looks similar to bacon grease and can be easily smuggled in tiny vials that are hard to find. Officials say they suspect the tubes are being transported to South Africa, where the fat is processed and sent back to the DRC in the form of ready-to-use products. So far, there’s only evidence of okapi oil being used in the DRC.
“It’s putting a target on the okapi’s back,” Lukas said. Before, hunters would sometimes accidentally kill an okapi while hunting for other bushmeat, but rarely intentionally.
With militia groups rampant throughout the forest, it’s not safe to send researchers into the forest for okapi surveys.
“There has been, and is still, a persistent effort to do a range-wide census of okapi, pending security issues being resolved,” Lukas said. “But in the meantime, the best thing to do for okapi is protect the forest and stop illegal activities.”
The Okapi Conservation Project partners with Conserve Congo and the Wildlife Conservation Society, organizations that have provided support for rangers to allow them to arrest wildlife traffickers. In June alone, they arrested four traffickers in the cities of Goma and Kisangani for possession of okapi fat and skins, he added. In 2014, the DRC also increased the penalty for trafficking to at least five years in prison and higher fines then the previous slap-on-the-wrist punishments. About 63% of the reserve is currently patrolled, Lukas said.
Although a new status assessment is imminent, counting okapi is less important than preserving intact forests. “We know how to protect them,” Lukas said. “It’s to save the forest.”
Meanwhile, deforestation has raged on, which means less habitat and food for the forest-dependent animals. Poverty-induced slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the major drivers, which is why the Okapi Conservation Project educates farmers about cultivating the same plot of land for at least a decade, Lukas said, which in turn increases crop yields. “It saves trees, but also provides food security,” he added.
Okapi can eat an impressive variety of forest plants, including toxic ones, but their options have severely dwindled. From 2002 to 2023, the Ituri Forest lost about 9% of its total area, according to Global Forest Watch. Meanwhile, the wider Congo Basin lost an area of forest bigger than Bangladesh in just 15 years.
Because the okapi population is concentrated in a relatively small area, protections can be more targeted. However, this also makes them more vulnerable to poachers. It’s a delicate balance.
A global insurance plan
In 1919, the first okapi to leave its homeland found itself whisked away to a Belgian zoo. Buta, named for the capital of the Congolese province of Bas-Uélé, became the first of many okapi that the Belgian king gifted to countries across the Global North while maintaining a brutal colonial presence in the Congo.
These okapi were political gifts, similar to how China engages in “panda diplomacy” today. But in the century since, captive okapi have formed the foundation of what’s now considered a “backup” for the DRC’s wild okapi population, according to Sander Hofman, Antwerp Zoo’s general curator. Hofman is also the international studbook keeper for captive okapi, which documents every one of the 186 okapi held in 67 zoos and other institutions worldwide.
The okapi studbook was created in the 1970s, when zoo directors and biologists convened in Antwerp to discuss ways of protecting the species.
“That was quite revolutionary, because at that time, zoos were not about conservation at all,” Hofman said. “They were about showing animals.” It was a pivotal shift. Starting in the 1990s, zoos became a major source of funding for the Okapi Conservation Project — and a pool of valuable okapi genetics.
“We are not sure that the okapi that are currently in Congo will make it,” Hofman said. But if international zoos can continue breeding captive okapi, “we will have a demographically and genetically viable population that, if needed in the future, we can send okapi to Congo,” he said.
According to scientific models, zoos would need at least 220 captive okapi for such a plan to be viable. But without a clear idea of how the DRC population is faring, it’s unclear when or if the insurance population will be necessary.
“What is important is that we really get a proper idea about the numbers and densities we have in Congo,” Hofman said.
To close the knowledge gap, Hofman called for continued collaboration among different conservation groups and better-quality data. So far, data collection has been “like little pieces of the puzzle,” he said. “The puzzle was definitely not finished.”
An impossible task
“It’s been a tough 10 years,” Hofman told Mongabay, referring to the period since the last assessment of the okapi’s conservation status for the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, was published in 2015.
He’s one person in a small group of IUCN okapi advisory board members now working toward an updated assessment by next year.
“The thing which is really lacking for okapi is a good understanding of where they live and how many there are,” said David Stanton, an evolutionary geneticist at Cardiff University in the U.K. who conducted genetic research on the species nearly a decade ago.
It’s one of the most basic pieces of information scientists try to collect for any imperiled species, and yet the most difficult for scientists who study this animal because of the lack of security across its native range. Although Lukas’s team currently uses camera traps to determine the age structure, physical condition and density of okapi in a specific area, these only provide a small snapshot in time and are limited to the reserve, he said.
Instead, Stanton suggests using genetic data from okapi droppings to help piece together an updated population estimate. Those same samples could also give clues into other aspects of okapi life, like their diet, gut microbe, parasite load, sex ratio, and more, thanks to major advances in DNA sequencing in recent years.
Stanton used a much simpler form of this genetic-sampling method in a 2015 paper published in the Journal of Zoology assessing the dispersal, mating habits and social dynamics of okapi. “It’s almost like crime-scene forensic approaches,” he said. “You’re trying to work with an animal you can’t really see, or it’s very hard to see them in the wild.”
Other methods aren’t ideal either, he said. The reserve’s camera traps can’t capture the entire population; radio collars are costly and difficult to apply; and pitfall traps — giant dugouts that okapi can fall into but not climb out of, a common technique used by the region’s Indigenous Pygmy hunters — causes unnecessary stress. Collecting fecal samples, on the other hand, is cheap and captures a wider sample size without being invasive.
“Going forward with okapi, that seems like the best kind of approach to me,” Stanton said. “Try and collect some dung and just do some sort of fairly simple genetic tests.”
He added it would be important to help build the capacity of DRC scientists and universities to do this type of analysis themselves. Meanwhile, locals are doing what they can to preserve the forest they share with okapi.
Communities for okapi
In the absence of safe surveying techniques, Lukas and the Okapi Conservation Project are leaning on the help of locals.
“How do you reconcile conservation objectives with the needs of the community?” said Berce Nsafuansa, program manager for the Okapi Conservation Project. “This is a big challenge.”
Rangers, also called eco-guards, can help monitor okapi remotely by recording okapi sightings, droppings, or other indicators of their presence along a forest transect, providing a small snapshot of okapi activity in that particular strip of area.
“If we have a lot of eco-guards, we can build security not only for the biodiversity, but also for the local community,” Nsafuansa said.
Women’s groups have also helped spread messaging on environmental stewardship and sustainability. All residents are encouraged to report violations or illegal activity to improve monitoring.
“The best long-term solution is having community support that will not be involved in illegal activities and will raise the alarm when illegal activities are in their neighborhood,” Lukas said.
While these efforts are ongoing in the reserve, Nsafuansa said he sees a lack of political engagement in northern DRC as a major barrier to improvement.
“If the people on the ground don’t believe this is a place worth saving, it’s not going to last,” Lukas said. “The pressures on Africans, and especially in the Congo, is beyond our understanding.”
Collaborations on the ground and in the lab are what scientists and locals advocate in pursuit of better okapi conservation. Even as regional unrest continues, “We’re still motivated on what we are doing,” Nsafuansa said. “We keep on going.”
Citations:
Tyukavina, A., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P., Parker, D., Okpa, C., Stehman, S. V., … Turubanova, S. (2018). Congo Basin forest loss dominated by increasing smallholder clearing. Science Advances, 4(11). doi:10.1126/sciadv.aat299.
Stanton, D. W., Hart, J., Kümpel, N. F., Vosper, A., Nixon, S., Bruford, M. W., … Wang, J. (2015). Enhancing knowledge of an endangered and elusive species, the okapi, using non‐invasive genetic techniques. Journal of Zoology, 295(4), 233-242. doi:10.1111/jzo.12205.
Stanton, D. W., Hart, J., Vosper, A., Kümpel, N. F., Wang, J., Ewen, J. G., & Bruford, M. W. (2014). Non-invasive genetic identification confirms the presence of the endangered okapi Okapia johnstoni south-west of the Congo River. Oryx, 50(1), 134-137.
This article by Marlowe Starling was first published by Mongabay.com on 18 September 2024. Lead Image: A new trade in so-called okapi oil for domestic use has created another market for okapi, and therefore another threat to the animal’s survival. Scientists are still processing the oil products to confirm what they contain and how they are being used. Image by Okapi Conservation Project.
What you can do
Help to save wildlife by donating as little as $1 – It only takes a minute.
Leave a Reply