20th century. With the introduction of horses and firearms during the 20th century, nomadic hunters were able to decimate populations. The decline of the southern population accelerated as Europeans began to settle the area and hunt them for meat, hides, and horn trophies. French involvement in World War II and the civil war in Chad that started in the 1960s are thought to have caused heavy decreases of the species through an increase in hunting for food. Roadkill, nomadic settlements near watering holes (the oryx's dry-season feeding places), and introduction of cattle and firearms for easy hunting have also reduced numbers. The IUCN lists the scimitar oryx as regionally extinct in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, and the Western Sahara, and has assessed it as EW since 2000. Reports of sightings in Chad and Niger remain unsubstantiated, despite extensive surveys carried out throughout Chad and Niger from 2001 to 2004 in an effort to detect antelopes in the Sahel and the Sahara. At least until 1985, 500 scimitar oryxes were estimated to be surviving in Chad and Niger, but by 1988, only a few individuals survived in the wild. A global captive-breeding program now exists for the scimitar oryx. In 2015, about 1,750 captives were managed as part of breeding programs; at the program's peak, up to 11,000 were kept in Texas farms and 4,000 were held in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Reintroduction plans involve fenced-in herds in Bou-Hedma National Park (1985), Sidi Toui National Park (1999) and Oued Dekouk National Park (1999) in Tunisia; Souss-Massa National Park (1995) in Morocco; and Ferlo Faunal Reserve (1998) and Guembeul Wildlife Reserve (1999) in Senegal. Chad is currently leading a project to reintroduce the species in Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Game Reserve, with the support of the Sahara Conservation Fund and the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi. At 78,000 km2 – equivalent to the size of Scotland- Ouadi Rimé Ouadi Achim is one of the world's largest protected areas. The first group was released at the beginning of 2016 in an acclimation enclosure and then fully released in the wild in the rainy season. That group was made of 21 animals, which by the beginning of 2017 had already produced a calf, the first birth in the wild for more than 20 years. A second group comprising six males and eight