Typical habitat includes riverine grasslands and floodplains of major rivers; grasslands; seasonal floodplains and grasslands near water within savanna woodlands (East 1999). Kobs are almost exclusively grazers, and confined to regions that have year-round access to water (Fischer 2013). Social organization in the Kob is dependent on density and includes two discrete mating systems, changing from a lek system at high densities (>14 animals/km²) to a resource-defence system at lower densities (Fischer 2013, and references therein).

Kob (Kobus kob) were formerly distributed across the whole West and Central African savanna zone from Senegal and Guinea-Bissau to South Sudan and extreme south-west Ethiopia, extending south into Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
Current distribution is patchy and the species has undergone extensive declines. K. k. kob (Buffon’s or Western Kob) were formerly one of the most abundant antelopes in West and Central Africa but are now largely confined to protected areas, having gone extinct from Gambia and Sierra Leone (and perhaps Mauritania) (Fischer 2013). K. k. leucotis (White-eared Kob) has the smallest range centred around the Sudd in South Sudan and still retains a large population. K. k. thomasi (Uganda Kob) are mainly found in Uganda and surrounding areas; these remaining populations represent less than 1% of its original distribution in East Africa (J. Kingdon pers. comm. in Fischer 2013).

While the Kob is highly susceptible to hunting, loss of habitat and disruption of the natural flooding regime, it has the ability to recover its numbers rapidly from very low levels with effective protection. For example in Cameroon, the population of Waza National Park decreased from 25,000 in 1962 to 2,000 in 1988-94. This resulted from a general drying out of its habitat caused by droughts and disruption of the natural flooding regime from 1979 by the construction of the Maga dam on the Logone floodplain, which formed Lake Maga. Additional mortality of the Waza population was caused by poaching and the 1982-83 rinderpest outbreak. Since 1994, the Netherlands-funded IUCN/CML Waza-Logone project has investigated rehabilitation of the floodplain by release of excess water from Lake Maga and the Logone River. By 1997, the Kob population was increasing in response to the reflooding activities of this project. While large-scale rehabilitation of the Waza-Logone floodplain is contemplated, this may not be possible unless increasing security problems and a degenerating social climate in the region are overcome (Scholte et al. 2007).

Protected areas important for the survival of Buffon’s Kob, include: Niokolo-Koba (Senegal), Comoé (Côte d’Ivoire), Arly-Singou (Burkina Faso), Mole and Bui (Ghana), Pendjari (Benin), Waza and Benoué and Faro National Parks of the North Province (Cameroon), Zakouma (Chad), and Manovo-Gounda-St. Floris (Central African Republic) (East 1999, Fischer 2013). Levels of protection within these sites are very variable and poaching is not effectively controlled in some.

Less than 1% of the total population of White-eared Kob occurs in protected areas, such as the Boma and Badingilo National Parks in south-east Sudan (East 1999).

The Uganda Kob survived in good numbers in Murchison Falls-Aswa Lolim, Queen Elizabeth and Tore-Semliki NPs (Uganda) and Garamba and Virunga National Parks (DR Congo) (East 1999), but the protection status of these protected areas in DRC has deteriorated since then due to insecurity. A few Uganda Kob are held in captivity but there is no coordinated breeding programme.