HABITAT AND ECOLOGY Preferred habitat includes mixed scrub woodland (it is one of the few large mammals that thrives in settled areas - in the scrub woodland and bush that reclaims abandoned fields and degraded pastures-), acacia, and mopane bush on lowlands, hills, and mountains. Recorded to 2,400 m in Ethiopia (Yalden et al. 1996). Kudu are browsers; they can exist for long periods without drinking, obtaining sufficient moisture from their food, but become water dependent at times when the vegetation is very dry (Owen-Smith 2013).
Greater Kudu are well represented in protected areas, from southern Tanzania to South Africa, with major populations in parks and reserves such as Ruaha-Rungwa- Kisigo and Selous (Tanzania), Luangwa Valley and Kafue (Zambia), Etosha (Namibia), Moremi, Chobe and Central Kgalagadi (Botswana), Hwange, Chizarira, Mana Pools and Gonarezhou (Zimbabwe) and Kruger and Hluhluwe-Umfolozi (South Africa). It also occurs widely outside protected areas, including large numbers on private farms and conservancies in southern Africa (Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa) where it is a mainstay of the trophy hunting industry (East 1999). East (1999) estimated that some 60% of the global population occurs on private land, and they seem to be expanding their distribution outside protected areas. In the northern parts of its range, key areas where some of the northern populations appear to have reasonable prospects for long-term survival include Zakouma N.P. (Chad), Awash N.P. (Ethiopia), Baringo, northern Laikipia and Tsavo (Kenya), and Tarangire (Tanzania) (East 1999).
CLASS : Mammalia
ORDER : Cetartiodactyla
FAMILY : Bovidae
GENUS : Tragelaphus
SPECIES : Greater Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros)
Conservation status : Least Concern
Update : 06 April 2017
