Far to the south rose the dim lines of the
Saharan Atlas range.
The wilaya of Naama is inserted between the Tellian Atlas in the North and the
Saharan Atlas in the South (Figure 2).
Moreover, a questionnaire on local knowledge (presence/absence, behaviour, habitat in relation with human activity and threats) was sent to forest rangers, wildlife associations and hunters federations of all governorates including part of the Saharan Atlas to report on the presence/absence of aoudad in their area.
We recorded only five remaining small populations of aoudad in the northern Saharan Atlas, mainly in the eastern part (Table I, Fig.
2013) reported that the Cuvier's gazelle was limited to the northern part of the country, being found neither in the north of the Tell Atlas nor south of the Saharan Atlas. The northern part of the range extended from Ouled Mimoun Tlemcen, Sidi Bel Abbes, Saida, Mascara, Tiaret, Tissemsilt to Relizane (Sellami et al.
(1990) reported a total number of 400 individuals when De Smet (1991) estimated a number of 560 individuals: 235 individuals in the Tell Atlas, 140 individuals in the Saharan Atlas, 135 individuals in the eastern mountains and 50 individuals in the Mergueb area.
This raised area where the Neritic cover of Eocene and Cretaceous lands is less thick than in Tellian chains of the
Saharan Atlas. It gradually narrows in the East to the Algerian-Tunisian border where
Saharan Atlas and the Tell chain are in contact [7].
"From exploring Algeria's beautiful Mediterranean coastline to venturing into the
Saharan Atlas mountains, the options are endless," the website says.
The average annual precipitation from the Anti-Atlas in Morocco to southern Tunisia, including the foot of the southern slope of the
Saharan Atlas, hardly exceeds 150 mm with an annual average temperature of 23[degrees]C and falls to 3 mm with a temperature of 25[degrees]C in the south-central Sahara (Ozenda, 1977).