The Bongo is associated with rainforest, disturbed forest areas and the forest-savanna ecotone in the West and Central African lowlands and montane forests in the Kenya highlands.

Bongo thrive on transition vegetation at the forest edge and in new growth areas that occur after disturbance (post-timber exploitation, elephant disturbance, tree-falls, landslides, burned fields; Elkan and Smith 2013). Forest clearings and mineral licks are important for geophagy and socialization (Elkan and Smith 2013, and references therein). Bongo are primarily browsers, but exhibit some seasonal grazing on grasses (Elkan and Smith 2013). There is a record from 4,300 m on Mount Kenya (Young and Evans 1993).

Bongo has a disjunct distribution in three separate patches. The Western or Lowland Bongo ranges from Sierra Leone to Togo (where they now probably only occur in Fazao National Park) and Benin (where a few may still exist in the Mt. Kouffe area); and then from SW Cameroon through Central African Republic to SW South Sudan, NE Gabon, N Republic of Congo and the northern half of DR Congo (East 1999, Elkan and Smith 2013). The gap in distribution is assumed to reflect patterns of expansion and contraction of forest habitats resulting from climatic fluctuations.

The Eastern or Mountain Bongo formerly occurred in and around forested mountains zones of Mt. Kenya, the Aberdares, Mau forest, Cherengani hills and Chepalungu hills in Kenya and Mount Elgon in Kenya and Uganda (Elkan and Smith 2013). Mountain Bongo was exterminated from the Uganda side of Mount Elgon around 1913-1914 (Kingdon 1982) and it is now confined to four completely isolated populations in patches of forest on Mt. Kenya, Mau Forest, Eburu Forest and the Aberdares in Kenya (Elkan and Smith 2013, Mountain Bongo Surveillance Project 2015).

As the largest and most spectacular forest antelope, the Lowland Bongo is both an important flagship species for protected areas such as national parks, and a major trophy species which has been taken in increasing numbers in Central Africa by international sport hunters during the 1990s. Both of these factors are strong incentives to provide effective protection and management of Lowland Bongo populations.

East (1999) estimated that perhaps 60% of Bongo numbers were confined to protected areas. In Central Africa, these include Dzanga-Ndoki National Park and Bangassou areas of the Central African Republic, Lobeke National Park (Cameroon), and in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park and Odzala National Park (Republic of Congo); in West Africa, strongholds include Taï (Côte d’Ivoire), Sapo (Liberia), and Kakum National Parks (Ghana) (East 1999, Elkan and Smith 2013). However, because the highest known abundances of Bongo in Central Africa occur in logging concessions not protected areas, an approach is needed that incorporates both protected areas and logging concessions (Elkan 2003, Elkan and Smith 2013).

The Mountain Bongo’s survival in the wild is dependent on more effective protection of the surviving remnant populations in Kenya (East 1999). Two conservation initiatives are currently in progress on Mountain Bongo. A program to reintroduce Bongo to Mt Kenya began in 2004, when 18 animals where flown from North American zoos to a captive-breeding facility at Mount Kenya Game Ranch, on the north-western slope of the mountain. A second phase began in 2005, with the commencement of a research program into the Mountain Bongo’s ecology. This project will attempt to determine the configuration of Bongo habitat on both the Aberdares and Mount Kenya, using recently collected field and remotely sensed data (L. Estes pers. comm. in Elkan and Smith 2013). Meanwhile, the Bongo Surveillance Program, initiated in 2004, has been investigating the status of the remaining wild Bongo populations in Kenya (L. Estes pers. comm. in Elkan and Smith 2013).