At the end of Februari devilfish and I visited Artis - Amsterdam Zoo and tried to see the black Springbok which should be kept at this zoo. Untill 3.00 PM without succes and devilfish had to leave the zoo because he had other things to do. At about 4.00 PM I returned to the Springbok / Giraffe enclosure and there he was, a nice black Springbok. Made a whole serrie of pictures of this animal of which several can be found in the Artis - Ameterdam Zoo Gallery. Last weekend I visited Safaripark Beekse Bergen in the Netherlands and made a lot of pictures of the hoofstock. At home I had a closer look at the many pictures and discovered on a few of the photos in the background at least 2 more black Springboks - didn't notice them at the Safaripark because I was focosing on other animals ! I also know that 2 other Dutch zoos had black Springboks in the past. During the 1980-ties both Blijdorp - Rotterdam Zoo and the now closed Dierenpark Wassenaar each had at least 1 black Springbok. Now I would like to know if and how rare this mutation is and if there are other zoos which keep / have kept it. Also I find it quite strange that the mutation seems to be so concentrated to the Netherlands.
This mutation is also found in game farms in South Africa, and apparently considered a pricey trophy animal. There are also brown wildebeest. For some reason, when there are brown springbok and black wildebeest, most valuable are black springbok and brown wildebeest...
yes big business in South Africa , breeding lots of colour variations, golden wildebeest etc - high prices paid - big demand - nasty thing messing with nature
I believe the black springbok in Europe originate from game captures in the 1970's organised by Dvur Kralove.
