When you visit the African wildlife exhibits at The Living Desert, you will see some of the most unique and fascinating fauna found in what most people think as the "wasteland" of the world: the desert. Animals such as Arabian oryx, several species of gazelle, sand cats and fennec foxes, all call the desert home. Almost all are critically endangered, largely because modern hunting equipment - jeeps, helicopters, telescopic sights and automatic weapons - has given man an immense advantage over animals in the desert.

The Living Desert has worked many years to successfully increase the world's population of slender-horned gazelles, sand cats, addax and Arabian oryx. A desert species, in general, has fewer individuals than, say, a jungle species, because a severe environment cannot support huge numbers of animals. As a result, human activity can push an already scarce desert species, such as the sand cat, to near extinction, as has happened in the deserts of Pakistan.

Not all African species in our collection are endangered. Aardwolves, camels, dik diks, hornbills, meerkats, rock hyrax, warthogs and zebras, everything from A to Z, can be found in the African animal exhibits at The Living Desert.