Bontebok

Bontebok National Park was proclaimed in 1931 and is the smallest of the South African national parks, at some 28 to 32 km² depending on the source. It lies at the foot of the Langeberg mountains, next to Swellendam, in the Western Cape, on the banks of the Breede River.

Its creation answered a specific emergency. The bontebok is an antelope endemic to the Cape Floral Region, dark chestnut in colour with very characteristic white markings on the face, legs and rump. It ranged the area in great numbers, but European colonisation and hunting brought it to the brink of extinction in the early twentieth century, until it was reduced to a few dozen animals kept on private farms. The park was established expressly to secure its survival.

The operation worked: the population recovered and other protected areas in the country have been restocked from this park, so that the bontebok is today one of the most cited recovery cases in South African conservation. The park also protects a sample of lowland fynbos and of riverine vegetation along the Breede, formations severely threatened by agriculture, and it is home to Cape mountain zebra, duiker and a fynbos birdlife. The river allows swimming and fishing, and the female bontebok give birth between September and November.