Arabian oryx

The rescue started before the crisis ended. Operation Oryx, launched in 1962, caught three wild oryx and joined them with donated zoo animals in a World Herd at Phoenix Zoo, picked for its desert climate. A decade later poachers killed the last wild herd in Oman and the species was declared extinct in the wild. Releases from the World Herd began in Oman in 1982. In 2011 the oryx was moved from Endangered to Vulnerable, a rare climb for an animal that had once been Extinct in the Wild. The 2016 assessment counted about 1,200 wild oryx, with 6,000 to 7,000 more in managed herds. Poaching remains the threat that never quite goes away.