Sever, Z. (2020). Some of the first okapis were discovered in the Semuliki N.P. in Uganda. The Zoological Society of Israel, 57th Conference, Abstracts, p.10. (Origin: Hebrew)

1. Sever, Z. (2020). Some of the first okapis were discovered in the Semuliki N.P. in Uganda.
The Zoological Society of Israel, 57th
Conference, Abstracts, p.10. (Origin: Hebrew)
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Some of the first okapis were discovered in the Semuliki N.P. in Uganda
Zvi Sever
Department of Biology, University of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, USA
Sever.zvi@gmail.com
With the aim of studying the source of the okapis that had arrived in the West as
skins, skulls, and live or dead individuals, a broad-based quantitative survey was
carried out, encompassing around 180 sources from 1885 to the present day, in the
relevant zoos and museums in Europe and the USA.
The findings from the survey reveal that some of the first items to arrive in European
museums up to 1914 were from the eastern bank of the Semuliki river, in the lowland
rain forests at the foothills of the Rwenzori ridge, an area belonging today to Uganda.
Moreover, the individual constituting the type specimen, providing the first definition
of the species, Okapia johnstoni, 1901, was from the Semuliki forest; i.e., the
Semuliki national park in Uganda, on the border with the DRC (Democratic Republic
of Congo).
The beginning of the 20th
century (from 1919 on) saw the first individuals to reach
zoos alive, also from the area of the present-day Semuliki national park.
Currently, with the okapi now designated as an endangered species, and their entire
population in the wild inhabiting a geopolitically unstable state, Congo/DRC, it is
important to establish a core reproductive population in the forest in which the okapi
had previously dwelt until the 1970s (Sever 2020). Consequently, there is great
importance to the decision of the Uganda Wildlife Authority to reintroduce the okakpi
to the Semuliki forest.
Sever Z. 2020. Searching for the Okapi (Okapia johnstoni) in Semuliki National Park,
Uganda. Afr. J. Ecol. Vol. 00:1-7. https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.12796