Okapi Okapia johnstoni
Endangered
Location: The Democratic Republic of Congo
Okapi come from the Giraffe family, giving them distinctive markings. These striking creatures appear a bit like a horse, a bit like a giraffe, or like a zebra dipped in chocolate. They live in the deep heart of Africa, in the Congo and are limited to the high canopy forests between about 450 m asl and 1,500 m asl and they occur in a wide range of primary and older secondary forest types. They do not extend into gallery forests or the forest-savannah ecotone and do not persist in disturbed habitats surrounding larger settlements. Okapi can coexist with small-scale, low-level human occupation of the forest, but disappear in areas of active settlement or disturbance, and the major threat to this species is habitat loss due to logging and human settlement including illegal occupation of protected areas (Hart 2013, Kümpel et al. 2015).
Deep in the heart of the #Congo is a curious creature a bit like a horse, a bit like a giraffe. @okapiproject The #Okapi is to the Congo what the Panda is to China. #PalmOil is one threat. Make art about this endangered creature #Boycott4Wildlife
Tweet
Support the conservation of this beautiful creature
Further Information
Mallon, D., Kümpel, N., Quinn, A., Shurter, S., Lukas, J., Hart, J.A., Mapilanga, J., Beyers, R. & Maisels, F. 2015. Okapia johnstoni. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T15188A51140517. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T15188A51140517.en. Downloaded on 28 January 2021.
Contribute in four ways
- Creatives: Promote your creative business and use your creative expertise to raise awareness and join the fight to save endangered species. Join us!
- Conservationists: Showcase your conservation work and activism, blog about the urgent issues that are vital right now. Find out more!
- Animal lovers: Big supermarket brands are directly contributing to this species’ extinction by destroying forests. You can join the #Boycott4Wildlife by sharing information from this website and boycotting brands in the supermarket.
- Activists in the UK, sign this petition: Prohibit the sale and use in the UK of palm oil and its derivatives in foods. Sign now!
Palm Oil Detectives 