MOVE AIMS TO SAVE RARE ANTELOPE.

Byline: James C. McKinley Jr. The New York Times

The airplane dropped out of the twilit sky above the savannah just in time, only minutes before darkness enveloped the dirt airstrip. It taxied quickly to a flatbed truck huddled in the gloom at the runway's end. A side door sprang open.

A moment later, Dr. Richard Kock climbed out of the single-engine Cessna Caravan, cradling in his arms a baby hirola antelope. Drugged and masked, the little animal looked fragile and lost in his arms. It was one of the last of its kind.

``We made it!'' yelled Kock, a veterinarian. ``This is it. That's the last of them.''

Rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service lugged two more adult female antelopes out of the plane, loaded the animals onto the flatbed and ferried them to a nearby corral, where they would sleep off the sedative before being released.

In a last-ditch attempt to save the hirola from extinction, Kock and rangers airlifted 33 of the rare, sand-colored antelopes in August from the scrubby desert region of Garissa near the Somali border to this national park.

It was not an easy operation. The rangers struggled with the logistics of catching and transporting the antelopes, and local political leaders, Kenyan citizens who are ethnic Somalis, filed a lawsuit that halted the project twice.

In court, politicians led by Abdikadir Sheik Hassan, the Garissa council chairman, accused the wildlife service of stealing a precious natural resource. The animal, they said, was ``a good omen and a gift from nature.''

``Its translocation to another far-off land will bring disaster to the people and their livestock,'' the lawsuit said.

On the last day of the airlift, a judge in Nairobi, Justice Gideon Mbito, agreed. He banned the wildlife service from taking any more animals from the Arawale Natural Reserve, a park managed by the local council.

The ruling did not stop the project, since many of the antelopes were being caught outside the reserve, but it could doom future attempts to save endangered species in Kenya if it stands up on appeal, wildlife officials said.

Among other things, the judge ruled that the wildlife service does not own the wildlife, nor does it have the final authority over its management. The ruling added that the people who use the land are entitled to its flora and fauna.

Kenya has lost 60 percent of its wildlife in the past 10 years because of poaching and the encroachment of people on the wild lands. The only animals increasing in numbers are those species the wildlife service has relocated to national parks and aggressively protected, like the rhinoceros and the elephant.

``If the ruling stands, then I'm afraid that's the end of the game,'' said Kock, who is chief veterinary adviser to the wildlife service and chairman of the task force to save the hirola.

But Ahmed Isaak Hassan, a lawyer representing the Garissa council, said the council's aim was only to force the wildlife service to protect the animal where it now lives. ``What we are arguing is that they should first try to conserve the animal in its natural habitat,'' he said. ``It is a very sacred animal among the Somali community.''

By last count, only 306 of the hirola were living in their natural habitat between the Tana River and the Somali border. About 57 were barely surviving in the Tsavo Park.

They are the descendants of a dozen animals that were brought to the park in 1963 as part of an earlier attempt to save them.

But the gene pool of the Tsavo group is too small to allow it to survive over the long run, researchers say. The only way to save the species is to bring new members to the Tsavo herds before poachers destroy the remaining hirola in Garissa. ``Our aim is to inject some new blood,'' said Wilbur Ottichilo, the deputy director for biodiversity.

One reason the antelope has declined is the general lawlessness of the Garissa region. Since civil war broke out in Somalia in 1990, armed gangs have terrorized the area, stealing from herders and poaching wildlife. The scientists and rangers on the project had to travel under heavy guard.

The rangers also had to contend with the anger of some local villagers, who were convinced by their leaders that the removal of the hirola was a bad omen. On one occasion, the rangers were stoned and assaulted in the village of Bura Bura.

``These people are criminal in my opinion,'' Kock said of the local politicians.

Beyond the political troubles, wildlife officials were faced with the logistical nightmare of trying to capture and transport wild animals nearly 200 miles. A helicopter was used to drive the wild antelopes into nets. Then the animals were sedated, blindfolded and taken by truck to a small plane.

Scientists say the hirola is an evolutionary relic that first appeared about 15 million years ago and is believed to be a progenitor of some more modern antelopes, like the hartebeest and the topi. According to fossil evidence, it once roamed as far south as the Cape of Good Hope and as far north as Somalia.

Also known as the hunter's antelope, the hirola has long, curved horns like the Impala, a sandy hide and pronounced scent glands under the eyes. Its anatomy is suited to harsh conditions, and it can live on very little water for weeks.

In 1976, there were 14,000 of the hirola in Kenya, living mostly along the Tana River and in the Garissa region, scientists said. The first blow to the population came in the early 1980s, when poachers killed off most of the elephants, which used to clear the land of thorn bushes and make room for grazers.

Then, between 1983 and 1985, a rinderpest epidemic brought in by cattle herders killed off more than half the antelopes in the region. Finally, the civil war and upheaval in Somalia in the early 1990s took its toll. As a flood of refugees and fleeing troops crossed the border into Kenya, thousands of the antelopes were killed for food.

By 1993, 2,000 hirola remained. Two years later, a census found only 306 left in Garissa. They were scattered in small groups of six or seven over 45,000 square miles of bush. Unless the animals are moved, they will be extinct within two or three years, wildlife officials said. ``Each of these pockets will gradually disappear, like bubbles,'' Kock said.

The morning after the last flight, researchers finished putting radio collars on a few of the animals to track them, opened up the gate of the corral and chased seven antelopes out. For a few minutes, the hirolas stood still in the vast Tsavo morning, as if stunned to find themselves in such a grassy place.

Their noses worked the wind coming down over the grassy flat lands dotted with Acacia trees, performing the calculus of scent and survival. Behind them, Kock clapped and whooped, encouraging them to go into their new world.

The antelopes loped off. They moved tentatively at first, then picked up speed. Their tails bobbed away into the flat lands that were the same tawny color they were. Soon, the bush swallowed them up, as if they were not creatures of flesh and blood at all, but spirits belonging to the land itself.

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Photo

Photo: Dr. Richard Kock and rangers unload a hirola antelop e into its new home in Tsavo National Park, Kenya.

The New York Times