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Freedom251 › Blog › African oryx

What African Antelopes Eat and How Introduced Gemsbok Could Affect New Mexico Wildlife

By Freedom251 Team · · 7 min read

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The African antelope established in New Mexico is the gemsbok, also called African oryx (Oryx gazella). In the state’s desert, the introduced animal eats grasses, yucca, buffalo gourds and mesquite bean pods. A diet study in southcentral New Mexico found that gemsbok and American pronghorn shared 53% of the plant species recorded in their diets. That overlap creates a credible concern about competition for forage, especially during drought, but it does not prove that gemsbok have caused broad declines in native wildlife.

The evidence is most specific for forage use and pronghorn. It does not establish identical effects for every native species, every African antelope, or every part of New Mexico.

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Which African antelope lives in New Mexico?

“African antelope” is a broad description covering many species. The animal involved in New Mexico’s wildlife debate is the gemsbok, or African oryx (Oryx gazella). Its introduced population is concentrated in the state’s south, particularly around White Sands Missile Range and the Tularosa Basin.

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The National Park Service (NPS) says 95 oryx were released on White Sands Missile Range and nearby areas between 1969 and 1977 to establish a population for public hunting. The NPS park page, last updated in 2023, reports that thousands are now present on the missile range. That figure is useful context from the agency, not a new statewide population estimate.

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Gemsbok are large desert-adapted grazers and browsers. They can travel and feed in arid country and can go for long periods without drinking, according to the NPS. Those traits help explain why a population introduced for hunting persisted in southern New Mexico.

What do African antelopes eat in New Mexico?

The local gemsbok diet

The NPS describes the species’ African diet as grasses, forbs and melons. In New Mexico, it identifies desert grasses, yucca, buffalo gourds and mesquite bean pods as foods used by oryx. Availability changes with rainfall, season and the condition of desert plants, so this list is not a fixed menu or a claim that every individual eats the same proportions.

  • Desert grasses: grasses provide forage when growth follows rain, but their abundance and quality can fall during dry periods.
  • Yucca: Yucca species are among the plants that both gemsbok and pronghorn used in the drought comparison.
  • Buffalo gourds: these desert melons are part of the New Mexico foods listed by NPS.
  • Mesquite bean pods: pods provide another seasonal food source in the desert environment.

Do not generalize this New Mexico list to all animals called antelopes. Species differ in body size, feeding strategy, habitat and plant selection. The findings here concern introduced gemsbok, not African antelopes as a group.

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How researchers compared gemsbok and pronghorn diets

A 2017 study by James W. Cain, Mindi M. Avery, Colleen A. Caldwell, Laurie B. Abbott and Jerry L. Holechek examined gemsbok and American pronghorn in southcentral New Mexico. The researchers analyzed fecal samples using microhistological methods to identify plant material and compare diet composition.

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The design answers a specific ecological question: how much of the forage base is shared, and how does dietary quality change across seasons and drought? It does not directly measure whether gemsbok reduced pronghorn numbers. The field comparisons included a warm-dry season in 2010 and a drought year, 2011.

Seasonal diet patterns

Animal and condition Main diet pattern reported in the study What the figure means
Pronghorn, cool-dry season Shrubs made up 64.5% of the diet Pronghorn relied heavily on woody browse in this season.
Pronghorn, warm-dry season Forbs made up 64.7% Herbaceous broadleaf plants dominated the measured diet.
Pronghorn, warm-wet season Forbs made up 54.1% Forbs remained the largest reported category after wetter conditions.
Pronghorn during drought Shrubs made up 50.7% The diet shifted toward shrubs as conditions became drier.
Gemsbok across forage categories Use was distributed relatively evenly The study did not find the same strong seasonal concentration in one forage category.

Across the plant species identified in fecal samples, 53% of species consumed by pronghorn and gemsbok were shared. The study’s diet-overlap metric averaged 0.44 ± 0.06 (standard error) in the 2010 warm-dry season and 0.49 ± 0.06 in the 2011 warm-dry drought season. These are the study’s overlap-index values, not percentages.

Which plants mattered most during drought?

During drought, four shared forage groups—yucca (Yucca spp.), prickly pear (Opuntia spp.), globemallow (Sphaeralcea coccinea) and horsenettle (Solanum elaeagnifolium)—accounted for 50% of the pronghorn diet and 40% of the gemsbok diet. Because both animals used these plants, scarcity could put them in direct competition for the same limited resources.

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What happened to dietary quality?

Between the warm-dry season of 2010 and drought year 2011, pronghorn fecal nitrogen declined by 26%, while fecal 2,6-diaminopimelic acid (a microbial marker used as an additional dietary-quality measure) declined by 27%. The study reported little effect of drought on gemsbok dietary quality.

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The authors therefore concluded that gemsbok can use forage with lower nutritional content, giving them an advantage over pronghorn, particularly during drought periods. Pronghorn may be more exposed when their access to precipitation-dependent, higher-quality forage falls.

How could gemsbok affect New Mexico’s native wildlife?

The strongest evidence: shared forage with pronghorn

Competition is plausible when two herbivores eat many of the same plants at the same time and those plants are scarce. The 53% shared-plant figure and the drought forage concentrations show that gemsbok and pronghorn overlap in resource use. A gemsbok population that maintains diet quality while drought lowers pronghorn diet quality could gain a relative advantage.

That advantage does not automatically translate into fewer pronghorn. Population size also depends on births, deaths, weather, predators, water, disease, habitat condition and human management. The 2017 study measured diet composition, overlap and quality indicators; it did not demonstrate a causal decline in pronghorn abundance caused by gemsbok.

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What remains uncertain for other native animals

Native plants and animals beyond pronghorn could be affected if heavy oryx use changes the availability of shared forage. However, the reviewed evidence does not establish that gemsbok have displaced a particular native species, caused statewide wildlife declines or produced broad ecosystem damage. Effects may differ by habitat, rainfall and the species’ ability to switch foods.

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It is also important to separate resource competition from disease. They are different possible pathways and require different evidence.

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How White Sands manages the introduced population

The NPS says it is concerned about effects on native plants and animals in White Sands National Park and uses both population control and exclusion. Annual oryx hunts began in 1974 and continue, according to the agency, to help control and stabilize the population.

Oryx exclusion is aimed at access to protected park habitat rather than at statewide abundance. The NPS reports that a 67-mile (108-kilometer) boundary fence was erected in 1996 to keep oryx out of the park.

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Measure Primary purpose What the available evidence establishes
Annual hunts Reduce or stabilize population abundance NPS reports hunts have operated since 1974 for control and stabilization; the reviewed material does not provide a controlled estimate of their ecological effect.
Boundary fence Reduce oryx access to White Sands National Park NPS reports a 67-mile (108-km) fence built in 1996 to prevent entry; this is an exclusion measure, not a statewide population estimate.
Monitoring diet and forage Identify resource overlap and drought risk The 2017 study documents overlap and dietary-quality patterns, but not a population-level causal effect.

These actions address different management questions. A fence can protect a defined area without removing animals from surrounding rangeland. Hunting can address abundance, but its effectiveness for native wildlife depends on effort, access, population response and habitat conditions. The sources reviewed do not provide a controlled comparison that ranks the measures.

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What is known about disease risk?

New Mexico’s wildlife agency reports that chronic wasting disease (CWD) has not been detected in species other than deer and elk in the state. The agency says limited testing included oryx and antelope. This statement applies to CWD surveillance; it does not establish that gemsbok cannot carry or transmit any other pathogen.

Therefore, disease should not be presented as a demonstrated explanation for native-wildlife declines. The available CWD information is narrower: no detections outside deer and elk have been reported by the state agency, despite limited testing that included oryx and antelope.

What New Mexico’s import rule means

New Mexico’s rule for importing live, non-domesticated animals generally requires a permit unless an exception applies. It establishes categories that consider invasiveness and risk to native wildlife and sets conditions for covered animal families.

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The general rule alone does not establish the current classification or import status of a particular antelope species. Anyone evaluating a proposed import would need to consult the current species importation list and applicable permit requirements rather than infer legality from the broad rule.

How to interpret the evidence without overstating it

  • Established: introduced gemsbok occur in southern New Mexico, and NPS reports thousands on the missile range as of its 2023 park-page context.
  • Established: NPS lists desert grasses, yucca, buffalo gourds and mesquite bean pods among New Mexico foods for oryx.
  • Measured: the 2017 study found 53% shared plant species and overlap-index values of 0.44 ± 0.06 and 0.49 ± 0.06 in the two warm-dry seasons.
  • Measured: drought forage groups made up 50% of pronghorn diet and 40% of gemsbok diet, while pronghorn fecal nitrogen and the microbial marker declined 26% and 27%.
  • Interpreted by the study authors: gemsbok may have a drought advantage because they can use lower-quality forage.
  • Not demonstrated: a gemsbok-caused, population-wide decline in pronghorn or other native wildlife.
  • Separate issue: the state’s CWD statement does not rule out every disease or prove transmission.

The most defensible conclusion is conditional: where gemsbok and native herbivores depend on the same forage, especially in drought, competition is a credible management concern. More extensive population and habitat studies would be needed to quantify its consequences for native wildlife.

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African oryxdrought ecologyGemsbokNew Mexico wildlifepronghornWhite Sandswildlife management

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