Wildebeest "The Great Space Coaster" (newscaster Gary Gnu), and "The Lion King" (the wildebeest stampede that resulted in Mufasa's death). Michael Flanders wrote a humorous song called "The Gnu", which was very popular when he performed it, with Donald Swann, in a revue called "At the Drop of a Hat", which opened in London on 31 December 1956. The wildebeest is the mascot of the GNU Project and GNU operating system. In the "Llama Llama" picture-book series by Anna Dewdney, an anthropomorphized wildebeest named Nelly Gnu is the main character, Llama Llama's best friend, and is also featured in a title
Wildebeest hunting is a major conservation concern in many areas, along with natural threats posed by main predators (which include lions, leopards, African hunting dogs, cheetahs and hyenas). Where the black and blue wildebeest share a common range, the two can hybridise, and this is regarded as a potential threat to the black wildebeest. The black wildebeest has been classified as a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in the "IUCN Red List". The populations of this species are on an increase. Now, more than 18,000 individuals are believed to remain, 7,000 of which are in Namibia,