EndangeredLappet-faced Vulture
Torgos tracheliotos
Africa
Gabon is covered in rainforest across close to eighty-five per cent of its surface and has a very low population density, which has allowed it to keep one of the best-preserved forest blocks in Africa. In 2002 the country created thirteen national parks at a stroke, protecting around a tenth of its territory, from the Ivindo rainforest, with its swampy clearings and waterfalls, to the savannahs and lagoons of Loango on the Atlantic coast. It holds the largest forest elephant population on the continent and substantial numbers of western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee and mandrill. Its beaches, between Pongara and Mayumba, receive the greatest concentration of leatherback turtle nesting on the planet, and the coastal waters are a migration route for humpback whales.
National animal: The black panther, the country's emblematic animal
At Loango the rainforest runs straight down to the beach and produces one of the most unusual sights in Africa: forest elephants, buffalo and hippopotamuses walking on the sand beside the Atlantic. The hippopotamuses even go into the surf and let the waves lift them, a behaviour that earned them the nickname of surfing hippos and that has been documented in virtually no other place in the world.
At Lopé the largest primate groups known have been observed, with mandrill troops of more than a thousand animals. Ivory poaching in Minkébé caused enormous forest elephant losses over the last decade.
Loango between July and September for humpback whales and wildlife on the beach. Ivindo year-round for bais with elephants and gorillas. The southern beaches between November and February for leatherback turtles.
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Same region: Central Africa
Same region: Central Africa
Same region: Central Africa
Same region: Central Africa
264 species found
Based on what we already know about Gabon.
