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Newborn eastern bongos vital additions at ZooTampa

By Barry Wong
Published  March 5, 2025 4:57pm EST
ZooTampa
FOX 13 News

Newborn eastern bongos vital additions at ZooTampa

At ZooTampa, three newborn eastern bongos are vital additions to the critically endangered species. FOX 13 photojournalist Barry Wong takes us there.

TAMPA - At ZooTampa, three newborn eastern bongos are vital additions to the critically endangered species. 

"It's a real sign of hope," ZooTampa Chief Zoological Officer Chris Massaro said. "The fact that we can support the future of a species, that numbers are really declining and in peril."

ZooTampa staff estimate that there are fewer than 100 eastern bongos in the wild. 

Dig deeper:

The herbivores are only found in the deep-forested areas of central Kenya. The eastern, or mountain bongo, is one of two subspecies of bongo. The antelope is the largest, heaviest and most colorful African forest antelope.

"There's actually only close to about 70 to 80 mature individuals, so contributing to the conservation of the species is incredibly important," ZooTampa Animal Care Professional Francesca Bertoglio said. 

The three calves, two girls and one boy, join four adult bongos at the zoo. Millie, born in January, was the first animal to be born at ZooTampa in 2025. The zoo participates in the Species Survival Plan, overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). The goal is to develop an "insurance population" for the critically endangered species. 

"There have been different species that have gone extinct in the wild that AZA zoos and our conservation partners have helped repopulate, so I can’t stress the importance enough of having an insurance population within our AZA communities," Massaro said. 

The bongo group can be seen while riding the zoo’s Expedition Wild Africa experience, which has been updated to focus more on the zoo’s conservation efforts. 

What they're saying:

"We share this earth with a number of other species. Each species is vitally important to balancing certain ecosystems. Ecosystems are developed over a period of time, and every species in it is perfectly evolved and equipped to live in that environment, and when you remove something or you destroy a certain environment, you throw that environment out of balance," Massaro said. "The work we do is hopefully to continue to support the conservation of species, and certainly the environments in which they live to bring balance back into our world."

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