At Riyadh Zoo, three adult males are kept indoors and are only allowed outdoors during the mating season. It has been observed that when zoo staff show up, for example to clean the enclosure or deposit food, the male oryx immediately goes there with clearly aggressive intentions.
This behaviour of oryxes makes it difficult to keep large numbers of them in a confined area of the zoo, and keeping males indoors without direct sunlight is not beneficial to these animals. For these reasons, research centres generally refrain from keeping adult males and perform artificial insemination of females. At the same time, it has been noted that males in large areas, when kept in a herd, generally do not attack humans.
