Bongos are characterised by a striking reddish-brown coat, black and white markings, white-yellow stripes, and long slightly spiralled horns.

[3] The western or lowland bongo, T. e. eurycerus, faces an ongoing population decline, and the IUCN Antelope Specialist Group considers it to be Near Threatened on the conservation status scale.

This bongo is classified by the IUCN Antelope Specialist Group as Critically Endangered, with fewer individuals in the wild than in captivity (where it breeds readily).

[4] In 2000, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in the USA (AZA) upgraded the bongo to a Species Survival Plan participant and in 2006 added the Bongo Restoration to Mount Kenya Project to its list of the Top Ten Wildlife Conservation Success Stories of the year.

As of 2013[update], these successes have been compromised by reports of possibly only 100 mountain bongos left in the wild due to logging and poaching.

Giant eland Common eland Greater kudu Balbok Bongo Sitatunga Cape bushbuck Harnessed bushbuck Nyala Lesser kudu The scientific name of the bongo is Tragelaphus eurycerus, and it belongs to the genus Tragelaphus and family Bovidae.

The bongo sports a bright auburn or chestnut coat, with the neck, chest, and legs generally darker than the rest of the body, especially in males.

The eastern bongo is darker in color than the western and this is especially pronounced in older males which tend to be chestnut brown, especially on the forepart of their bodies.

The smooth coat is marked with 10–15 vertical white-yellow stripes, spread along the back from the base of the neck to the rump.

The horns of bongos are spiraled, and share this trait with those of the related antelope species of nyalas, sitatungas, bushbucks, kudus, and elands.

Unlike deer, which have branched antlers shed annually, bongos and other antelopes have unbranched horns they keep throughout their lives.

The bongo runs gracefully and at full speed through even the thickest tangles of lianas, laying its heavy spiralled horns on its back so the brush cannot impede its flight.

Today, all three populations' ranges have shrunk in size due to habitat loss for agriculture and uncontrolled timber cutting, as well as hunting for meat.

Such habitats may be promoted by heavy browsing by elephants, fires, flooding, tree-felling (natural or by logging), and fallowing.

[18] As a large animal, the bongo requires an ample amount of food, and is restricted to areas with abundant year-round growth of herbs and low shrubs.

Pathogenesis of goiter in the bongo may reflect a mixture of genetic predisposition coupled with environmental factors, including a period of exposure to a goitrogen.

[19] Leopards and spotted hyenas are the primary natural predators (lions are seldom encountered due to differing habitat preferences); pythons sometimes eat bongo calves.

In 2000, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) upgraded the bongo to a Species Survival Plan participant, which works to improve the genetic diversity of managed animal populations.

In 2004, 18 eastern bongos born in North American zoos gathered at White Oak Conservation in Yulee, Florida for release in Kenya.

White Oak staff members traveled with the bongos to a Mount Kenya holding facility, where they stayed until being reintroduced.

[20] In the last few decades, a rapid decline in the numbers of wild mountain bongo has occurred due to poaching and human pressure on their habitat, with local extinctions reported in Cherangani and Chepalungu hills, Kenya.

Whilst captive breeding programmes can be viewed as having been successful in ensuring survival of this species in Europe and North America, the situation in the wild has been less promising.

The isolation of the four remaining small bongo populations, which themselves would appear to be in decline, means a substantial amount of genetic material is lost each generation.

Whilst the population remains small, the impact of transfers will be greater, so the establishment of a "metapopulation management plan" occurs concurrently with conservation initiatives to enhance in situ population growth, and this initiative is both urgent and fundamental to the future survival of mountain bongo in the wild.

The western/lowland bongo faces an ongoing population decline as habitat destruction and hunting pressures increase with the relentless expansion of human settlement.

[22] Trophy hunting has the potential to provide economic justification for the preservation of larger areas of bongo habitat than national parks, especially in remote regions of Central Africa, where possibilities for commercially successful tourism are very limited.

Along with the Rothschild giraffe, the eastern bongo is arguably one of the most threatened large mammals in Africa, with recent estimates numbering less than 140 animals, below a minimum sustainable viable population.

By managing all four populations as one, through strategic transfers, gene loss is reduced from 8% to 2% per decade, without any increase in bongo numbers in Kenya.

For this reason, the 'metapopulation management plan' must occur concurrently with conservation strategies to enhance in situ population growth.

CITES lists bongos as an Appendix III species, only regulating their exportation from a single country, Ghana.