Oryx

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

SAN ANGELO, Tex.– –
The Endangered Species Propagation,
Survival and Research Center, of San
Angelo, Texas, on February 10
exported 62 Arabian oryxes to the
United Arab Emirates. The oryxes––
16 bucks and 46 does––are to be reintroduced
to their native range.
The original wild Arabian
oryx population was hunted to extinction
by 1972, but Operation Oryx,
formed by the Flora and Fauna
Preservation Society in 1962, reintroduced
the species to Oman in 1982.

Even as the UAE reintroduction
got underway, the National
Park Service proposed hiring New
Mexico Department of Game and Fish
staff to shoot about 200 oryx who
were trapped inside the White Sands
National Monument in 1996, after
NPS built a 68-mile fence at cost of
$885,000 to keep them out. The
National Monument oryx were stragglers
from the White Sands Missile
Range herd of about 2,500, who were
introduced as hunting stock in 1969.
New Mexico Game and Fish
director Jerry Maracchini is on record
as preferring that the National
Monument oryx be captured alive and
relocated. Attempts to drive the oryx
out of the National Monument in 1993
and 1996 were unsuccessful. The
1996 effort ousted just 42 oryx, at
cost of $18,000 just in helicopter time.