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Today, the Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area os 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is cut by the main Nairobi - Mombasa road, which links the hinterland of Kenya to the Coast. But, there was a time when this giant Park belonged only to the elephants and other wild animals that inhabited this vast tract of semi-desert. Only the traditional elephant hunters of the Waliangulu tribe ventured into what is now known as the Tsavo National Park, the area being too arid for cultivation, and unsuitable for livestock due to the presence of the tsetse fly which carries trypanosomiasis, deadly to cattle, but to which wild animals are immune. Traditional elephant migration routes between Tsavo West National Park (lying west of the Nairobi/Mombasa railway) and Tsavo East (east of the railway) today are hazardous passages for Tsavo's elephant herds, since they have to pass through settlement and run the gauntlet of snaring and the hostility of agricultural small holdings of the Taita people. Our "Emily" became an orphan when she fell into a disused pit latrine near the Manyani Prison Camp, built by the British in the 1950's to house the then "terrorists" of the Mau Mau rebellion.<<613200554245-pic1.jpg>> At the time, her herd was "streaking", a term that is used today when elephants move rapidly through dangerous areas of human habitation in order to be able to link up with family and friends further afield, bearing in mind that an elephant shares the same span of life as a human (three score years and ten) and that they keep in touch with loved ones through "infrasound" throughout life. Infrasound is low frequency communication beyond the hearing range of the human ear, so, to us, the elephants speak to one another silently and mysteriously. | More about Tsavo National Park | EMILY's detail profile | Foster EMILY Now | |
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The Imenti forest is another small remnant patch of forest East of Mount Kenya between Embu and Meru, harbouring a diminishing number of elephants, whose migration route to the Mount Kenya population has been interrupted by dense human settlement and cultivation. Plans are afoot to try and fence this small forest to protect the smallholdings abutting the forest, preserve the forest itself from illegal logging activities and save the few remaining elephants that still exist there, whose numbers are now few. Orphans "Ndume" and "Malaiaka" (who died in childbirth aged 11 at the end of 2000) and also"Imenti" and most recently "Wendi" are lucky survivors of the ongoing human/elephant conflict that exists in this area. |
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The Masai Mara and adjoining Loita plains form the northernmost part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, a l0,000 sq. mile area encompassing the annual movements of its migratory wildebeest. The Serengeti is in Tanzania and the Mara in Kenya. The Mara receives the highest annual rainfall (some 53 inches) with rain falling throughout the year peaking in December, January and April and today provides the dry season refuge for the great Serengeti grazing hordes since the grass here is still plentiful when the Serengeti plains have dried out. Prior to the 1960's only some Serengeti wildebeest spilled over into the Masai Mara in very dry years and most wildebeest found in the Mara belonged to the separate Loita population seasonally moving between the Loita plains in wet months and the lusher Mara during the dry months. The Serengeti wildebeest population peaked at about 1.3 million in the 1960's and 1970's and then began to utilise the Masai Mara as their dry season range. However, the commercial trade in "bushmeat" and an expanding human population is currently taking a very heavy toll of numbers, although the still vast assemblage of ungulates annually moving through the ecosystem remains the greatest wildlife spectacle on earth and is known as "the migration", attracting tourists from all over the world being the last remaining migration of large mammals on earth. When it is wet in the Serengeti the wildebeest herds congregate on the short grass plains of the South- eastern part of the ecosystem to give birth en masse with 80% of the females calving within a few weeks. Early in the dry season, they stream en masse through the longer grass plains and on to the Western Corridor and as their food supply diminishes, they move into the northern Serengeti woodlands spreading out but moving North in response to rainfall and forage, eventually arriving in the Mara in June or July. The "crossings" on the Mara river afford a thrilling spectacle as thousands of animals jump into the water which takes a heavy toll. The great herds remain in the Mara until late October or early November when rain is again falling and then slowly at first but with increasing momentum they leave the Mara by various routes following the rains back south. The Mara's abundant herbivores make it a paradise for predators both large and small. When the first Europeans came to the Mara in the late 1800's, it had been inhabited by the Masai people (who came down from the North) for about 300 years. The Masai lived in harmony with the wildlife, for they do not, except in times of famine, hunt wild game for food. In the Maa language, the word "Mara" means "light and shade" referring to the patchy mosaic of tree lined luggas interspersing the vast open plains. Following the first great rinderpest outbreaks at the end of the 1800's, which decimated the herbivores, woody vegetation began to take hold dominating the terrain and at the turn of the century the Mara was known by the Masai people as "Osere" meaning "thick bush". However, the incursion of Elephants driven out by human occupation of their former vast ranges and now confined in this relatively small protected area, coupled with man induced fires and grazing by both wild and domestic herbivores has wrought a transformation from heavily wooded savannah and bushland to more open grasslands, benefiting the grazers above the browsing species. Our orphan "Aitong" is from the Mara population of elephants, found near a place of that name, with head injuries that left her walking in circles, unable to keep up with the herd. |
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Orphan Mweiga was amongst a small herd of elephants desperately trying to find their way back into the Aberdare National Park from a small privately owned elephant friendly Ranch near Mweiga which is now encircled by small-holding farmland . The Aberdare National Park, now barrier fenced, was established in 1950 and encompasses an area of 228 sq. miles. This Park includes moorlands and part of the forest of the Aberdare Mountains, and is, for the most part, above l0,000 ft. in altitude. The famous Treetops Hotel, situated in a salient of the Park which extends down the eastern edge to the beginning of the forest was originally erected as a game viewing platform by David Sheldrick's father and was situated within the boundaries of his farm, known as Mweiga Estate. The Treetops Platform was upgraded to accommodate a few guests from the nearby Outspan Hotel in Nyeri, owned by a friend, and today is a large hotel on stilts accommodating over 150 guests and a popular tourist destination. It was at Treetops that Princess Elizabeth became Queen upon the death of her father, King George VI in the early fifties. The Aberdare mountains are part of the central highlands of Kenya, running roughly north-south between Nairobi and Thomson's Falls. In altitude the range rises to some 12,900 ft, its eastern and western flanks covered in heavy montane forest in places giving way to bamboo and hargenia zones at higher levels. Deep ravines cut through the forested inclines, through which hidden trout streams flow and waterfalls cascade down hundreds of feet of rock face. Above the forest stretch miles of open moorland broken by lichen covered rocky outcrops, hills and crags, and thickets of giant heath and tussock grass bogs. In addition to a resident population of elephants, the Park harbours Black Rhino, giant forest hogs, and the rare bongo but the introduction of lions from Solio Ranch and illegal snaring has decimated the forest dwellers who are not used to coping with lion predation. Attempts are currently being made to rid the Park of its lions to allow the forest dwelling species a chance to recover, but illegal logging and poaching remain a serious threat. |
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Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. One of the Conservation Service Centre's more progressive clients is The Wilderness Guardian Company, a community-centred initiative based at the Loisaba Ranch in northern Laikipia. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbours and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. The Wilderness Guardian Company's latest innovation is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project will give the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change, and which yielded three of our orphans - Uaso, Loisaba and Laikipia. |
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The Tsavo National Park takes its name from the river Tsavo, which rises in the foothills of Kilimanjaro, flows through Tsavo West National Park, its flow boosted by the discharge from the famous Mzima Springs, is bridged by the main Nairobi Mombasa road where it flows into the Eastern Section of the Park and there joins up with the river Athi (which rises in Nairobi) to become the Galana river. As such it flows through Tsavo East National Park, becoming the Sabaki when it leaves the Park to enter Giriama country and spill into the sea North of the coastal town of Malindi. The railway from Mombasa inland was under construction in the late 1800's, overseen by a man called Patterson, using labour imported from what was then British India. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that held up work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from their bush barricades and tents, devouring them within hearing of their terrified comrades. They even feasted on some Europeans, snatching one from a rail trolley and another from a coach. Colonel Patterson hunted the Tsavo maneating lions for some three months before he managed to shoot them, by which time they had accounted for over 50 Asian workers. His exploits, and those of the lions are graphically recorded in his book "The Maneaters of Tsavo". The lions of Tsavo still display the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised Tsavo at this point in time, they have to be tough to survive and even today cope with much larger prey than their savannah cousins. It was at this famous place on the main Nairobi - Mombasa road, within sight of the railway bridge, that our orphan "Tsavo" was found, wandering alone, his mother dead nearby. | More about Tsavo National Park | TSAVO's detail profile | Foster TSAVO Now | |
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Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. One of the Conservation Service Centre's more progressive clients is The Wilderness Guardian Company, a community-centred initiative based at the Loisaba Ranch in northern Laikipia. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbours and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. The Wilderness Guardian Company's latest innovation is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project will give the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change, and which yielded three of our orphans - Uaso, Loisaba and Laikipia. |
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The Sweetwaters Sanctuary, 24,000 acres in extent, is a ring fenced tourist preserve at the eastern section of Ol Pejeta Ranch near Nanyuki which is now owned by Corporate Lonrho, but was once owned by the Bastard family who were connected by marriage to that of Daphne. Situated within the productive plains beneath Mount Kenya this area once teemed with an abundance of wildlife that rivalled the gazing hordes of the Masai Mara in numbers and although what remains today is a mere shadow of that previous abundance, the sanctuary still supports a good variety of species in low numbers, offering visiting tourists magnificent views across the plains to the snow-capped peaks of Mt. Kenya, the Aberdare range and the Loldaiga Hills to the north east. It also boasts a small refuge for rescued chimpanzees established along the banks of part of the Uaso Nyiro river which snakes its way through the ranch, Being privately owned, the Sanctuary has the advantage of being able to offer special activities not permitted in the Kenyan National Parks and Reserves and is also home to some 28 Black Rhino and a small elephant population which prior to the recent relocation numbered some 100. Elephants need s p a c e and confined within the small area of the Sanctuary in numbers the area could not sustain, they habitually broke through the Electric Barrier Fence in an attempt to migrate beyond, only to find themselves in dense human settlement and trouble. Orphan "Natumi" is a victim of this when her herd went to drink on a neighbouring farm owned by Kenya's President, and her mother and three others were killed by the Presidential Guard. Recently, the Kenya Wildlife Service, with N.G.O. funding, successfully managed to move 52 of Sweetwater's elephants to Meru National Park an exercise aimed at relieving the pressure. "Sweet Sally", along with her mother, were amongst those moved and sadly, upon arrival at the other end, the mother was so traumatised that she simply fled when the travelling crate was opened, leaving her baby behind, who, unbeknownst to her, was in a separate crate. After a two day aerial search failed to locate the mother, Sweet Sally became an orphan of the Trust. The name "Sweetwaters" arose when the first owner of the Ranch, Daphne's relative, drilled a borehole on the western side of the Uaso Nyiro river only to find the water saline. He then drilled another on the eastern bank, and was elated to find that the water was "sweet". |
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In Laikipia, the wild semi-arid land North of Mount Kenya, the community conservation projects of Il Ngwezi and Namunyak, initiated by the Craig family of Lewa Downs Private Ranch as a buffer to protect the boundaries of their land, has, for the past four years, quietly revolutionised attitudes in these drought-prone rangelands inhabited by the nomadic Samburu people, who are an off-shoot of the Masai tribe. The group ranch of Il Ngwezi encompasses an area of l6,500 acres. A small, but beautiful 12 bed Lodge situated on the side of a hill, comprised of simple but tasteful tree-houses overlooking a waterhole and valley and run entirely by the local community, has not only captured the hearts of hundreds of tourists, but has helped to prove that wildlife conservation can be more profitable to local people than cattle herding. Opened in December 1996, and built with funding from USAID, the Il Ngwezi Group Ranch Lodge has been the model that has been followed by other conservation movements desperately searching for alternatives to livestock. Today, the lodge and security operations employ many local tribesmen, who have also established a cultural village where local crafts are on offer to the tourists. Such has been the success of the project that from a livestock ravaged over grazed rangeland, the Il Ngwezi Group ranch is now being marketed as an attractive wildlife destination, where the elephant herds are protected and welcome and where close wildlife encounters are available through activities not normally permitted in the National Parks. And here, the local tribesmen rescued our orphan "Ilingwezi" who fell into, and became trapped in a deep wash-away. These same tribesmen have taken a keen interest in her welfare and life since, visiting her in our Nairobi Nursery, and later flown to Tsavo to see "their" elephant again in Tsavo East National Park where "Ilingwezi" is one of 20 other young orphans currently in their second weaning year of life, and beginning the reintegration back where she rightly belongs - within the wild herds of elephant in an area that offers an elephant quality of life in terms of space and protection. In an area where poaching and snaring has always been rife, Il Ngwezi has not experienced the mass killing of elephants of yore for four years. Grazing by cattle has been drastically reduced within the conservation area, prohibited for l Km. around the Lodge itself where the ranch's last intact grasslands attract an increasing number of wild animals. The Il Ngwezi community has also launched a project to reseed local areas that have historically been overgrazed and this is another ground-breaking initiative with sweeping benefits. |
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The influence of the Il Ngwezi Group Ranch has stretched further north and resulted in a remarkable partnership between the local Namunuyak Group Ranch Samburu tribesmen and a local Safari Operator, Acacia Trails. With assistance from Ian Craig's Lewa Conservancy and the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust has been formed to nurture a 75,000 acre conservation area of arid country overseen by a trained team of local Scouts. A network of tracks. radio communication coverage and a beautiful five tented Camp has sprung up, with a host of school and water projects initiated to serve the local town of Wamba. Today, two and a half years after its inception, Acacia Trails is in the process of handing the management of their Sarara Camp over to 16 young Samburu tribesmen who have won high praise for their swift conversion from herding to hosting and it is thanks to this new conservation awareness that two of our orphaned elephants, "Edie"(whose name means "far away") and "Lolokwe" (who takes his name from the sacred Sugar Loaf mountain of the Samburu tribe) were saved from certain death and granted a second chance of life in Tsavo. A fundamental attitude change has also accompanied the wildlife resurgence in the wake of initial political difficulties between the local Ndorobo and Samburu communities. The management of the reserve has settled down under the watchful eye of a board of local Trustees with several new projects on the drawing board, including a, (hopefully, sustainable) wooden furniture business, bee-keeping and a Cycad Nursery and slowly, it looks hopeful that the oldest battle of all will be won - the local herdsmen are giving the camp an increasingly wide berth with their cattle. |
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The foothills of the Northern Aberdare range of hills gently slope down to fertile farming country where small patches of remnant forest remain, and where a narrow 300 ft waterfall named Thompson's Falls by the British for the Explorer Joseph Thompson, and now known as Nyahururu, is still a popular tourist destination. This country, once blessed with teeming millions of wild animals, was the setting for the infamous shenanigans of the minority Happy Valley set of British Settlers, which not only provided a talking point in their day, the subject of several books and films, but who also decimated the grazing hordes seen as competition for grazing. Further north west the Laikipia Plateau becomes drier and more suited to cattle ranching, but isolated patches of once beautiful and extensive forests still remain, one of which is that of Rumuruti, now encircled by dense human habitation. Here those elephants that still survive are virtual prisoners in their isolated forest strongholds, and every time they step out, they find their ancient migration routes cut and occupied by an expanding human population trying to eke out subsistence living on smallholdings. These elephants have been forced through harassment to reverse their normal behaviour, seeking refuge deep within the remaining forest patches during the hours of daylight and intense human activity, and venturing out only after dark, often to snatch a meal from what humans have planted. They are the "problem elephants" that are constantly in trouble, continually in conflict with human interests, and they face death on a daily basis; doomed refugees to be pitied, with no long-term hope of survival. Our orphan "Thoma", left behind when her herd was driven out of cultivation is lucky indeed to have been spared, although she arrived badly battered and severely traumatised whilst "Salama" has the distinction of being the only elephant to have been officially "arrested" when as a tiny calf he was separated from his fleeing herd, and frog-marched to a Police Station. |
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An area of 800 sq. miles in Kenya's Northern Region, Marsabit National Reserve consists of a forested mountain massif which rises like an oasis in the midst of a desert wilderness encompassing a spectacular group of volcanic craters of which Gof Bongoli is the largest and most dramatic. Within the forest zone are other craters, and one, which fills with water during seasons of favourable rains, is aptly named Lake Paradise, made famous by the early films and writings of Martin and Osa Johnson and Vivien de Wattville. Marsabit Mountain was once famous for its Big Tuskers, one of which was named "Ahmed", whose body is immortalised at the Nairobi National Museum and who, during the latter part of his life, was awarded Presidential Protection. Today, human encroachment, armed Somali "Shifta" banditry and general lawlessness has made Marsabit unsuitable as a general tourist destination, and its wildlife resource is being systematically eroded. Immediately north of Marsabit lie the black lava wastes of the great Dida Galgalla desert with a buffer zone of sandy soil supporting acacia trees and bush between it and the mountain. Our orphan "Icholta" was rescued in a pitiful condition near a place of that name. |
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The influence of the Il Ngwezi Group Ranch has stretched further north and resulted in a remarkable partnership between the local Namunuyak Group Ranch Samburu tribesmen and a local Safari Operator, Acacia Trails. With assistance from Ian Craig's Lewa Conservancy and the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust has been formed to nurture a 75,000 acre conservation area of arid country overseen by a trained team of local Scouts. A network of tracks. radio communication coverage and a beautiful five tented Camp has sprung up, with a host of school and water projects initiated to serve the local town of Wamba. Today, two and a half years after its inception, Acacia Trails is in the process of handing the management of their Sarara Camp over to 16 young Samburu tribesmen who have won high praise for their swift conversion from herding to hosting and it is thanks to this new conservation awareness that two of our orphaned elephants, "Edie"(whose name means "far away") and "Lolokwe" (who takes his name from the sacred Sugar Loaf mountain of the Samburu tribe) were saved from certain death and granted a second chance of life in Tsavo. A fundamental attitude change has also accompanied the wildlife resurgence in the wake of initial political difficulties between the local Ndorobo and Samburu communities. The management of the reserve has settled down under the watchful eye of a board of local Trustees with several new projects on the drawing board, including a, (hopefully, sustainable) wooden furniture business, bee-keeping and a Cycad Nursery and slowly, it looks hopeful that the oldest battle of all will be won - the local herdsmen are giving the camp an increasingly wide berth with their cattle. |
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South of Lake Turkana, beyond the Ndoto mountains northwest of Laikipia, South Horr and the El barta Plains, overlooking a lava desert resembling a moonscape stands Ol Donyo Nyiro (the Black Mountain) 2,752 ft. high. In his early explorations Count Teleki skirted the western foothills of Mount Nyiro from where he caught a glimpse of the Suguta Valley "which gave us the impression of the bed of an old lake". This was an accurate observation, for in the Upper Pliocene period before the period of major faulting and folding, the low-lying valley was once part of Lake Turkana (formerly known as Lake Rudolf) but then became separated by an extensive volcanic barrier. Teleki's expedition describes this desolate and forbidding land, riven by great gorges and yawning chasms, which still maintains its savage splendour of the past and has a wild grandeur of its very own. In his words, "the barren ground was strewn with gleaming, chiefly red and green volcanic debris, pumice-stone, huge blocks of blistered lava and here and there pieces of petrified wood". Our orphan Nyiro is a product of the remote region around Mount Nyiro and, amongst all the orphans, is the one that comes from furthest afield, indeed a lucky elephant to find himself now living in safer and more hospitable surroundings. |
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Our orphan "Mukwaju" takes his name from the Swahili word for the "Sausage Tree" (Kigelia africana), since he was orphaned at "Satao Camp", which today is a tented lodge shaded by a grove of these beautiful trees growing within the flood plain of the seasonal Voi river. This seasonal stream rises in the Taita Hills and flows only during the rains, flowing into and through the man-made lake known as Aruba, which today is so silted that it barely exists. There were occasions in the past when the Voi river actually reached the sea near Kilifi, but today it seldom even reaches the Park boundary, disappearing as a soggy marshy plain below Satao Lodge which dries out in the dry season. Elephant "Mukwaju", as a newborn, got bogged in the mud of the waterhole in front of the tented lodge. His desperate mother tried to pull him free, inflicting a deep tusk wound in his neck behind the ear in an attempt to get some purchase on his slippery body. However, when other thirsty elephant herds congregated, desperate to drink, and the camp's human activity arrived with the dawn, she left. Apparently, she returned the next night to try and recover her baby, but by that time he had been flown to the Trust's Nairobi Nursery. As things turned out, this was just as well, because the tusk wound in Mukwaju's neck needed a lot of veterinary intervention before it healed. In a wild state, it is doubtful whether he would have survived such a serious infection. | More about Tsavo National Park | MUKWAJU's detail profile | Foster MUKWAJU Now | |
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A lava ridge, which rises near Nairobi and runs the entire length of the Tsavo East National Park, known as "The Yatta Plateau", is the longest lava flow in the world, covering a distance of some 170 miles before disappearing beyond the Eastern boundary of the Park at a place called Lali. Even today, theories as to its origin conflict. Some Geologists believe that the Plateau was the result of the welling up of lava from a long crack in the earth's surface, others that the surrounding country has eroded away, and others that the lava spewed out from its source and simply travelled a very long way. It is just below the Yatta Plateau in what is known as The Triangle of Tsavo National Park, an area isolated by the Tsavo river on one side, the Mtito Andei watercourse and the Athi river on the other, that our orphan "Yatta" was found alone, gunshots having been heard by our de-snaring team operating just beyond the boundary. Although the body of her mother was not found, undoubtedly poachers operating in the area were responsible for this calf becoming separated from her mother and herd. | More about Tsavo National Park | YATTA's detail profile | Foster YATTA Now | |
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The Meru National Park, an area of some 700 sq. miles, lies to the north-east of Mount Kenya, famous as the home of Elsa the lioness, whose association with Adamsons and her life in this wild and beautiful country is well documented through the best selling book, "Born Free". The Park ranges in altitude from 3,400 ft. at the foothills of the Nyambeni range on the north-eastern boundary to just 1,000 ft. at the Tana river in the south-eastern sector. It can be likened to a microcosm of "Tsavo", but is much better watered, with numerous rivers and luggas bordered by riverine forest, and impressive stands of doum and raphia palms. The rest of the Park is covered by bush of varying densities, with Combretum dominating in the northern section giving way to Commiphora scrubland in the south. The north eastern quadrant is open doum palm country, with swampland, grassy plains, and acacia woods and in the extreme north there is a small patch of rain forest which is an outlier of the Ngaia forest. This beautiful little Park, once a Meru County Council Reserve, but which was handed over to the National Parks authority by the Meru people in the early sixties, has, like Tsavo, been bedevilled by heavy Somali bandit poaching as well as poisoned arrow poaching ever since the National Parks Board of Trustees were abolished and all National Parks came under direct Government control at a time when influential people were involved in the illegal ivory trade. Only when Dr. Leakey was installed as Director of the newly named Kenya Wildlife Service in the early nineties was some semblance of control restored, but subsequent to that under another director, the Park suffered from lack of funding and official neglect, and then the bush-meat trade almost wiped out the smaller "meat" animals. Once home to some 3,000 migratory elephants, currently the Park holds fewer than 200 elephant. Very recently it has been restocked with giraffe and zebra moved from the privately owned Lewa Ranch. Orphans Mulika and Kinna are from the Meru National Park population of elephants. |
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West of the lush agricultural farmlands of Kitale, a tarred road drops down through the Marich Pass and the missionary station of Ortum heading towards Lodwar and eventually Lake Turkana. Beside this flows the Turkwell river fed from the well watered highlands and the Cherangani hills. It passes through a narrow gorge which, in recent times, has been dammed for hydro-electrical purposes and east of the resulting manmade Turkwell Gorge Dam is the Nasalot National Reserve, a small patch set aside to provide dubious refuge for the last of the once great elephant herds that roamed this arid region inhabited by the Turkana people where survival, even for humans, is a major challenge. Bringing relief to the otherwise desolate landscape of thorny acacia scrub are occasional wide sandy luggas that become raging torrents during brief periods of rain and which are bordered by large shady trees. It was in one of these luggas that Ajok, (whose name means "hello"in Turkana), was found, mysteriously alone when only 1 week old in May 1990, but otherwise unharmed. It is here too that Nasalot became an orphan when her mother was gunned down and her ivory tusks hacked from her face. Like the others from beleaguered elephant populations with little longterm hope of survival, these two desert orphans are, indeed, fortunate to have been rescued and to now find themselves in a place that offers more protection and more hope. |
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The Meru National Park, an area of some 700 sq. miles, lies to the north-east of Mount Kenya, famous as the home of Elsa the lioness, whose association with Adamsons and her life in this wild and beautiful country is well documented through the best selling book, "Born Free". The Park ranges in altitude from 3,400 ft. at the foothills of the Nyambeni range on the north-eastern boundary to just 1,000 ft. at the Tana river in the south-eastern sector. It can be likened to a microcosm of "Tsavo", but is much better watered, with numerous rivers and luggas bordered by riverine forest, and impressive stands of doum and raphia palms. The rest of the Park is covered by bush of varying densities, with Combretum dominating in the northern section giving way to Commiphora scrubland in the south. The north eastern quadrant is open doum palm country, with swampland, grassy plains, and acacia woods and in the extreme north there is a small patch of rain forest which is an outlier of the Ngaia forest. This beautiful little Park, once a Meru County Council Reserve, but which was handed over to the National Parks authority by the Meru people in the early sixties, has, like Tsavo, been bedevilled by heavy Somali bandit poaching as well as poisoned arrow poaching ever since the National Parks Board of Trustees were abolished and all National Parks came under direct Government control at a time when influential people were involved in the illegal ivory trade. Only when Dr. Leakey was installed as Director of the newly named Kenya Wildlife Service in the early nineties was some semblance of control restored, but subsequent to that under another director, the Park suffered from lack of funding and official neglect, and then the bush-meat trade almost wiped out the smaller "meat" animals. Once home to some 3,000 migratory elephants, currently the Park holds fewer than 200 elephant. Very recently it has been restocked with giraffe and zebra moved from the privately owned Lewa Ranch. Orphans Mulika and Kinna are from the Meru National Park population of elephants. |
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Originally established in April 1952, the Queen Elizabeth National Park borders on the Semliki River, Lake Edward, the Kazinga Channel and Lake George. The latter is a small and shallow lake which at one time was one of the most productive in the world, its soupy waters rich in microscopic plant life supporting an abundance of fish whose growth was stimulated by the continual application of organic manure from literally thousands of hippos which used to inhabit these waters. However, under Dictator Idi Amin, most of Uganda's wildlife, including the hippo, were decimated to provide food for the Uganda army, and later to feed the Tanzanian contingent that went in to overthrow Amin and instal another Dictator, Milton Obote. Years of political upheaval, neglect and in-house poaching took a devastating toll of all Uganda's wild fauna, and almost wiped out both the hippos and the elephants. Only recently, under President Yoweri Museveni, has order been restored in Uganda, and some semblance of control re- established within the National Parks. Our orphaned elephant, "Mweya" was named by the Ugandans for the Mweya Safari Lodge which commands wonderful views over Lake Edward, where elephant "Mweya" simply wandered into a fishing village as a newborn, and obviously orphaned elephant. Now known as the Ruwenzori National Park, the Queen Elizabeth National Park was at one time probably one of the most spectacular Parks on the African continent, and scenically it still is with its lush green vegetation, rolling grassy plains, great lakes and swamps and patches of imposing tropical forests, outliers of the great forests of the Congo. It includes the Kazinga Channel joining Lake Edward to Lake George where launch trips are once again becoming popular. To the North there is an extensive zone of volcanic craters and crater lakes, with superb scenic views of the Ruwenzori Mountains. From the Mweya Safari Lodge, in one direction, deep blue Lake Edward stretches away towards the purple 8,000 ft. ridges of the Congo mountains; in another direction tawny plains dotted with patches of bottle-green jungle merge into the forested foothills of the ancient 17,000 ft. Ruwenzori Range with its knife like ridges and great rock buttresses, where the highest snow-capped peaks seemingly float remote and unassailable under the vast vault of the African sky. To be able to gaze at distant snowfields while listening to the bellow of a nearby Hippo is a striking illustration of the fantastic potential and variety of the Uganda scene. |
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The elephants of the mainly arid Northern frontier districts of Kenya, like those of Tsavo, are anchored during the long dry season to the few sources of permanent water and it is then that the poachers are most active, bringing havoc and suffering to the herds. This has been exacerbated by the rapidly expanding human population which has encroached on previously wild lands, cut ancient migration routes genetically embedded in elephant memories and over-run fragile springs and watering systems with increasing numbers of livestock. Somewhere in the Samburu National Reserve in October 1961, an arrow fired from a poacher's bow changed the course of the life of an 18 month old baby elephant that was to become the most famous elephant of her time. She was named "Eleanor" and she was to become the very first self appointed elephant "Matriarch" to many other elephant orphans of misfortune that followed as a result of three decades of rampant slaughter for ivory beginning in the late sixties. This was exacerbated by the elephant die-off caused by the Great Drought of 1970 when 10,000 elephants died from malnutrition as a result of immigration resulting in overpopulation of what the elephants considered one of their last remaining safe havens - Tsavo National Park. The elephant population of the Tsavo Park's ecosystem, (an area twice the size of the Park itself, 16,000 square miles in extent) used to harbour, in happier times, some 45,000 animals. The Great Drought of 1970 accounted for some l0,000 mainly female and young elephants, and it was the poachers that accounted for the rest. By 1990 when the poaching was brought under control, only a mere 6,000 elephants were left within the entire 16,000 ecosystem. The elephants' safe haven had turned into an Elephants' Graveyard and what had happened to the population was to have a long-term negative impact, affecting their social fabric and causing another set of problems that became known as elephant/human conflict. | Read More About Eleanor's Story | ELEANOR's detail profile | Foster ELEANOR Now | |
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There is a place on the infamous Nairobi - Mombasa road, not far from the Buchuma waterholes of Slave Caravan fame in Tsavo East National Park, which is known as "Mackinnon Road", "Mackinnon" being the name of the man who laid the first strip of tar on what was then just a dusty, rutted track linking the capital city of Nairobi with the Coastal Port of Mombasa. This road marked the venue for a British Army Staging Camp during the Second World War, remembered by old-timers because a naďve soldier offered a passing wild elephant a bun, and got killed for his pains" Today, this point on the main highway is marked by a small roadside settlement sporting a mosque and some shops. Our orphan "Lissa" was rescued in the Park not far from Mackinnon Road, found wandering alone, with a back leg that was malformed having healed from an earlier break. She was obviously a poaching victim, and was close to death when rescued, emaciated and starved, yet of the age when she could be given directly to the then Matriarch, "Eleanor" her feeding supplemented with milk. | More about Tsavo National Park | LISSA's detail profile | Foster LISSA Now | |
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Before what was known as "The Taru Desert" became the Tsavo National Park in 1949, the only people that habitually moved through this area were a small tribe of traditional elephant hunters known as the Waliangulu, whose lifestyle and culture was interwoven with elephants. They were few in number, who in early days attached themselves to the pastoral Orma people for protection against marauding bands of Masai bent on acquiring any cattle that happened to be held by others. (Masai believe that all cattle belong to them, and any other tribe that had cattle, held them illegally since they were the property of the Masai decreed so by God.) The Orma people, who were also dependent upon their cattle, occupied more open country towards the Tana river and were constantly warding off Masai incursions into their tribal land. The then Taru Desert was unsuitable for livestock due to the presence of the tsetse fly carrying trypanosomiasis deadly to cattle, yet to which the wild game had become immune. The Waliangulu Elephant hunters, in exchange for protection, provided their Orma benefactors with meat as well as ivory which could be sold to passing Arab Slave Traders. Subsisting on the meat of elephants hunted by the Waliangulu meant that the Orma did not have to resort to killing their precious livestock, something both they and the Masai are always loathe to do, since cattle represent wealth, used as payment for marriage dowries and eaten only at important festive functions. The name "Chuma" means "iron" in Swahili, and our orphan "Chuma" lived up to his name, being hardy and tough, although just a year old when orphaned. Like Lissa, he could be given directly into the custody of "Eleanor" , a victim of poaching during a particularly dark period in the history of the Tsavo National Park when both Somali and in-house poaching was rife and uncontrolled for three decades following the death of David Sheldrick, Tsavo's famous first Warden. | More about Tsavo National Park | CHUMA's detail profile | Foster CHUMA Now | |
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"Olmeg" fell into a trench near a place called Maralal, which is the official administrative Headquarters of Samburuland and lies at the base of the forested Karisia Hills. These rise up from the Larogi Plateau northwest of the Samburu National Reserve, overlooking open plains and scattered bush country which becomes persistently more arid as one heads North to Baragoi and South Horr into the arid lava desert wastes of Lake Turkana itself. Classified as the Gateway to the inhospitable north, elephant herds still migrate between the Karisia Hills and the Mathews Range. Our orphan "Olmeg" was left behind when, as a tiny calf, he fell into a trench when his herd which was probably fleeing poachers. He was rescued by Samburu tribesmen and kept at the Maralal Safari Lodge for several days before being flown to us, severely sun damaged and very unwell having been fed on carrots and cows' milk. |
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The wise old leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt mounting alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their vast domain by man. During the 1800's Slave Caravans traversed what was then only known as "The Taru Desert" from the Coast to the hinterland and back with their cargoes of chained slaves, ivory and skins, halting at the famous Buchuma waterholes, (now within Tsavo East National Park) where deep fissures in an out-cropping of bedrock traps and holds water well into the dry season. It was not far from here that our orphan "Taru" was found in November 1987 as a tiny three month old calf, whose mother had been killed by poachers for her ivory. | More about Tsavo National Park | TARU's detail profile | Foster TARU Now | |
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This orphan's herd was gunned down by Somali Ivory Poachers at a place within the Tsavo National Park where two German Missionaries named Krapf and Rebmann were the first Europeans to sight the snows of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain on the African Continent. Believing that it was impossible to find snow on the Equator, they surmised that Kilimanjaro's white summit must be limestone rock. Later, the British early Explorers traversed what is now known as The Tsavo National Park, people like Lord Lugard who walked from the Coast up the Galana river, after whom the famous "Lugards Falls" on the Galana river are named. Here, his party took a rest, and Lord Lugard got his finger bitten by a crocodile when he washed his hands in the river. | More about Tsavo National Park | DIKA's detail profile | Foster DIKA Now | |
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The Imenti forest is another small remnant patch of forest East of Mount Kenya between Embu and Meru, harbouring a diminishing number of elephants, whose migration route to the Mount Kenya population has been interrupted by dense human settlement and cultivation. Plans are afoot to try and fence this small forest to protect the smallholdings abutting the forest, preserve the forest itself from illegal logging activities and save the few remaining elephants that still exist there, whose numbers are now few. Orphans "Ndume" and "Malaiaka" (who died in childbirth aged 11 at the end of 2000) and also"Imenti" and more recently "Wendi" are lucky survivors of the ongoing human/elephant conflict that exists in this area. |
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Amboseli National Park is world famous for its scenic beauty with towering Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, but also for its largely undisturbed elephant population, the only elephant population on the entire African continent that has not suffered massive ivory poaching, and whose family structure is still largely intact. Numbering just over 1,000, this population has provided the baseline for elephant research for the past 28 years, in a detailed study where every individual is known and its life documented by resident Scientists who monitor their lives on a daily basis. Cynthia Moss has studied the female units and Dr. Joyce Poole the bulls and elephant communication and much of what is known about the nature of elephants today is a result of this research. The National Park and abutting Game Reserve embody five main wildlife habitats, plus a generally dry lake bed known as Amboseli from which the Park takes its name. There are open plains; stands of yellow-barked acacia woodland and doum palm groves, swamps and marshes fed from the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, rocky lava strewn thornbush country, and at the western end of the Reserve, the massif Oldoinyo Orok rising to over 8,300 ft which is still for the most part zoologically largely unexplored. Everywhere, the landscape is dominated by snow-capped Kilimanjaro immediately to the south which at 19,340 ft is Africa's highest mountain and a fitting backdrop to this important wild region where the pastoral Masai people and their cattle have coexisted in harmony with most wild creatures for many a century, killing only the lions in cultural rituals, but more recently the rhinos for the price of the horn. Protest spearing of some elephants has also occurred in recent times due to revenue sharing disputes. Our orphan "Edo"was the son of a famous Amboseli elephant Matriarch known as Emily, part of the "E" family, who died as a result of garbage at one of the Lodge rubbish pits. As the only Amboseli calf not to simply provide another statistic for the Scientific study, he is indeed fortunate and ironically he owes his life to a Japanese Film Unit who was filming his family at the time, and who could not bear to see the endearing little star of their film simply wither away and die. When his mother perished Edo was just 6 months old, and as such still milk dependent, and although he had a lactating sister, she would not allow him to suckle. |
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West of the lush agricultural farmlands of Kitale, a tarred road drops down through the Marich Pass and the missionary station of Ortum heading towards Lodwar and eventually Lake Turkana. Beside this flows the Turkwell river fed from the well watered highlands and the Cherangani hills. It passes through a narrow gorge which, in recent times, has been dammed for hydro-electrical purposes and east of the resulting manmade Turkwell Gorge Dam is the Nasalot National Reserve, a small patch set aside to provide dubious refuge for the last of the once great elephant herds that roamed this arid region inhabited by the Turkana people where survival, even for humans, is a major challenge. Bringing relief to the otherwise desolate landscape of thorny acacia scrub are occasional wide sandy luggas that become raging torrents during brief periods of rain and which are bordered by large shady trees. It was in one of these luggas that Ajok, (whose name means "hello"in Turkana), was found, mysteriously alone when only 1 week old in May 1990, but otherwise unharmed. It is here too that Nasalot became an orphan when her mother was gunned down and her ivory tusks hacked from her face. Like the others from beleaguered elephant populations with little longterm hope of survival, these two desert orphans are, indeed, fortunate to have been rescued and to now find themselves in a place that offers more protection and more hope. |
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213 miles from Nairobi and 33 miles north of Isiolo town, the Samburu National Reserve, as the most accessible of the Northern Frontier faunal Sanctuaries, is an extremely popular tourist destination. The Samburu side of the Reserve covers an area of 40 square miles on the northern bank of the Uaso Nyiro river with l0 miles of river frontage. Opposite on the southern Bank, is the Buffalo Springs National Reserve which falls beneath the auspices of the Isiolo County Council and which also has 10 miles of river frontage with a bridge across the river connecting the two. Since all water dependent species in this arid thirstland have to come down to the river to drink, game viewing is easy and tourist clientele easily satisfied without travelling great distances. Beyond and even within these small Sanctuaries, however, the elephants are very vulnerable to poaching, and when the mother of Lominyek died of gunshot wounds, , also suffering from a gunshot in the leg, became an orphan of the Trust. "Lominyek" means "the lucky one" in the Samburu dialect, and this elephant, over a year old when he was brought in, is, indeed, lucky to have been saved and transported to the larger and much safer haven of Tsavo. He only spent a few months with us until he identified another wild foster Matriarch and slotted comfortably into her family, so Lominyek is a success story of which the Trust is justifiably proud. |
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The Lewa Downs Conservancy is managed and owned by the Craig family and consists of scenically beautiful low lying arid ranchland below the fertile agricultural wheat and horticultural farms of the upper regions around Mount Kenya. Some 40,000 acres in extent, the Conservancy practices limited traditional beef and dairy farming, benefiting from irrigation from the Ngare Ndare river, a tributary of the Uaso Nyiro flowing through to the Samburu National Reserve, but it is now mainly going over to a wildlife based economy with tourist facilities for game viewing and camping safaris. In addition, it practices consumptive commercial utilisation of wildlife with a "culling quota" issued by the Kenya Wildlife Service. As a member of the Laikipia Wildlife Forum its views on consumptive wildlife utilisation and hunting mirror policies practiced further south in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and are at variance with Kenya's more compassionate conservation ethics. Hunting in particular is viewed by indigenous Africans as an out-moded Colonial relic and as such does not enjoy public endorsement despite being aggressively lobbied by the white dominated Laikipia Wildlife Forum. The Ranch is ring fenced, with gaps to allow the migratory elephant herds to pass through to the Shaba and Samburu National Reserves, and is home to some 28 Black Rhino, introduced in the early eighties, and over 30 White Rhinos introduced from animals originally imported from South Africa. (White Rhino are not indigenous to Kenya in living memory, but the fossils of the Northern White race, which differs slightly from the Southern Whites, have been found.) It holds most of the remaining Grevy Zebra in the country plus a healthy population of common zebra, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, buffalo and other grazing and browsing species including a few Sitatunga brought in from the small surviving Siaya Swamp population of Western Kenya. Recently it has supplied excess giraffe and zebra to restock Meru National Park, where wildlife has been ravaged by years of neglect, and corruption involving the commercial "bushmeat" trade, but where control has now been restored. Our orphan "Lewa" was rescued from this Ranch, after becoming too weak to keep up with the herd. He was just l year old at the time and as such still milk dependent, so his lactating mother must have perished. No calf orphaned under the age of two can survive without milk, and few between the ages of two and five can make it without nutritional supplementation in the form of coconut, which contains the correct fat essential for the health of a growing elephant baby. |
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The Sweetwaters Sanctuary, 24,000 acres in extent, is a ring fenced tourist preserve at the eastern section of Ol Pejeta Ranch near Nanyuki which is now owned by Corporate Lonrho, but was once owned by the Bastard family who were connected by marriage to that of Daphne. Situated within the productive plains beneath Mount Kenya this area once teemed with an abundance of wildlife that rivalled the gazing hordes of the Masai Mara in numbers and although what remains today is a mere shadow of that previous abundance, the sanctuary still supports a good variety of species in low numbers, offering visiting tourists magnificent views across the plains to the snow-capped peaks of Mt. Kenya, the Aberdare range and the Loldaiga Hills to the north east. It also boasts a small refuge for rescued chimpanzees established along the banks of part of the Uaso Nyiro river which snakes its way through the ranch, Being privately owned, the Sanctuary has the advantage of being able to offer special activities not permitted in the Kenyan National Parks and Reserves and is also home to some 28 Black Rhino and a small elephant population which prior to the recent relocation numbered some 100. Elephants need s p a c e and confined within the small area of the Sanctuary in numbers the area could not sustain, they habitually broke through the Electric Barrier Fence in an attempt to migrate beyond, only to find themselves in dense human settlement and trouble. Orphan "Natumi" is a victim of this when her herd went to drink on a neighbouring farm owned by Kenya's President, and her mother and three others were killed by the Presidential Guard. Recently, the Kenya Wildlife Service, with N.G.O. funding, successfully managed to move 52 of Sweetwater's elephants to Meru National Park an exercise aimed at relieving the pressure. "Sweet Sally", along with her mother, were amongst those moved and sadly, upon arrival at the other end, the mother was so traumatised that she simply fled when the travelling crate was opened, leaving her baby behind, who, unbeknownst to her, was in a separate crate. After a two day aerial search failed to locate the mother, Sweet Sally became an orphan of the Trust. The name "Sweetwaters" arose when the first owner of the Ranch, Daphne's relative, drilled a borehole on the western side of the Uaso Nyiro river only to find the water saline. He then drilled another on the eastern bank, and was elated to find that the water was "sweet". |
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The foothills of the Northern Aberdare range of hills gently slope down to fertile farming country where small patches of remnant forest remain, and where a narrow 300 ft waterfall named Thompson's Falls by the British for the Explorer Joseph Thompson, and now known as Nyahururu, is still a popular tourist destination. This country, once blessed with teeming millions of wild animals, was the setting for the infamous shenanigans of the minority Happy Valley set of British Settlers, which not only provided a talking point in their day, the subject of several books and films, but who also decimated the grazing hordes seen as competition for grazing. Further north west the Laikipia Plateau becomes drier and more suited to cattle ranching, but isolated patches of once beautiful and extensive forests still remain, one of which is that of Rumuruti, now encircled by dense human habitation. Here those elephants that still survive are virtual prisoners in their isolated forest strongholds, and every time they step out, they find their ancient migration routes cut and occupied by an expanding human population trying to eke out subsistence living on smallholdings. These elephants have been forced through harassment to reverse their normal behaviour, seeking refuge deep within the remaining forest patches during the hours of daylight and intense human activity, and venturing out only after dark, often to snatch a meal from what humans have planted. They are the "problem elephants" that are constantly in trouble, continually in conflict with human interests, and they face death on a daily basis; doomed refugees to be pitied, with no long-term hope of survival. Our orphan "Thoma", left behind when her herd was driven out of cultivation is lucky indeed to have been spared, although she arrived badly battered and severely traumatised whilst "Salama" has the distinction of being the only elephant to have been officially "arrested" when as a tiny calf he was separated from his fleeing herd, and frog-marched to a Police Station. |
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Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. One of the Conservation Service Centre's more progressive clients is The Wilderness Guardian Company, a community-centred initiative based at the Loisaba Ranch in northern Laikipia. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbours and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. The Wilderness Guardian Company's latest innovation is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project will give the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change, and which yielded three of our orphans - Uaso, Loisaba and Laikipia. |
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On the 64,000 acre Rukinga Ranch, Savannah Camps under Steve Turner has helped to construct the Taita Discovery Centre - a 40 bed Study Centre where foreign and local students undertake a variety of wildlife and conservation based studies in exchange for a fee, as well as examining alternative uses for this semi arid land abutting the giant Tsavo National Park. Running alongside the main Nairobi - Mombasa road which passes through this Ranch is the Mombasa pipeline, whose source is 60 miles distant, at Mzima Springs in Tsavo West National Park. This pipeline was constructed during the Colonial era in the early fifties, the contract given to a French firm assisted by Italian engineers. Crystal clear water is taken from beneath the lava to serve the city of Mombasa and its environs, but today, fifty years later, many parts of the pipeline has fallen into disrepair, leaking at many places along its length. Two of our orphaned elephants, "Maungu" and "Ndara" are victims of such places, both having fallen into one of the deep leaking manholes on this decaying pipeline where it passes through Rukinga Ranch. |
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These two tiny orphans, who were both only 6 weeks and 4 weeks old respectively when they were deposited on our doorstep by Helicopter, having been rescued by Ian Craig of Lewa Downs. Both are victims of the same natural fissure, one of many rock catchment "wells" known as "Kasima Hamisi" situated 20 miles Northeast of Shaba National Reserve. Negotiations are currently in progress with the people of this area to try and develop eco-tourism as an alternative means of revenue earning to their nomadic pastoral existence wherein livestock are totally dependent upon the vagaries of the weather and this is, in iself, uncertain in this arid semi desert country. The elephant herds that exist in this area are very vulnerable to poaching by Somali bandits, and have to compete with large numbers of cattle etc., for water at the few watering points, one of which is Kasima Hamisi. The herds are always in a hurry when they come to drink at such places, due to the pervading human scent, added to which they are thirsty and hot. Water drips from desperate trunks, making the rock slippery and dangerous for the small calves beneath their mothers, and in the ensuing chaos, they slip in, doomed to die a miserable death exposed to the sun for as long as they can keep afloat. |
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These two tiny orphans, who were both only 6 weeks and 4 weeks old respectively when they were deposited on our doorstep by Helicopter, having been rescued by Ian Craig of Lewa Downs. Both are victims of the same natural fissure, one of many rock catchment "wells" known as "Kasima Hamisi" situated 20 miles Northeast of Shaba National Reserve. Negotiations are currently in progress with the people of this area to try and develop eco-tourism as an alternative means of revenue earning to their nomadic pastoral existence wherein livestock are totally dependent upon the vagaries of the weather and this is, in iself, uncertain in this arid semi desert country. The elephant herds that exist in this area are very vulnerable to poaching by Somali bandits, and have to compete with large numbers of cattle etc., for water at the few watering points, one of which is Kasima Hamisi. The herds are always in a hurry when they come to drink at such places, due to the pervading human scent, added to which they are thirsty and hot. Water drips from desperate trunks, making the rock slippery and dangerous for the small calves beneath their mothers, and in the ensuing chaos, they slip in, doomed to die a miserable death exposed to the sun for as long as they can keep afloat. |
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Between Tsavo West National Park and Tsavo East are the Taita Hills, mountains that are densely populated by the Taita tribe. The Taita hills are ancient outlyers of the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania, rising in altitude to some 8,000 ft., rich with rare endemic birds, butterflies and plants, all of which are today very threatened by human pressure. A huge sheer rock face comprising part of the Taita Hills, overlooks a small settlement known as "Bura" and it is from this that our elephant, "Burra" takes his name. In ancient times wrongdoers within the Taita tribe were hurled over this rock face to stand the test of justice. If, perchance, they managed to survive the fall of many hundreds of feet, they were deemed "innocent" and set free, and if they didn't, they were guilty. Naturally there were few "innocents" amongst the victims of such rough justice! The Taita Hills Sanctuary adjoins the Lake Jipe end of Tsavo West National Park and forms part of the elephants' traditional migration route. Today, both the Sanctuary and the neighbouring tribal lands are bristling with wire snares set to trap animals for the illegal "bushmeat trade", which is a sinister form of poaching which exacts a very cruel and heavy toll of life. Even elephants are not spared, for many become snared around a leg, or the trunk, and as the animal struggles to free itself, the wire noose tightens, cutting deep into flesh and cutting the flow of blood and resulting in horrendous wounds that turn gangrenous, immobilising the victim. Many elephants die in unspeakable agony from snare wounds, and our "Burra" would have gone this way had he not been spotted from a Helicopter lagging behind the herd, emaciated, weak and close to death. The cable that snared him had dug deep into his neck and throat, inhibiting his ability to suckle his mother, as well as cutting one ear into two separate pieces. He was rescued just in the nick of time to save his life. |
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The name "Mvita" means War, and this little orphan is so named because she comes from a place within the Tsavo National Park near the famous Tsavo bridge, which was closely guarded by the British from fortified positions on top of rocky outcrops and hills during the First World War in anticipation of an attack on the bridge by the Germans. Fierce fighting took place in and around parts of Tsavo West National Park during the First World War between the British who were the Colonial Power in Kenya and the Germans, who colonised neighbouring Tanganyika and the famous German General von Lettow Vorbeck gave the British a serious run for their money during this East African Campaign. The Battle of Salaita Hill was a very famous exchange which yielded two Victoria Crosses for the British force, one to a South African Captain who is buried in the War Cemetry at Voi. Today remnants of the British fortified positions can still be seen on the hills surrounding the Tsavo bridge on the main Nairobi - Mombasa road, and the story lives on of a legendary character known as "Simba Mbili" (meaning 'two lions'), an old one eyed Asian Station Master at Mtito Andei who sent the authorities a telegram that read "Two hundred Germans approaching. Please send rifle and 200 bulletts"! Simba Mbili was apparently very confident of his shooting prowess, having once shot two lions with one bullet. | More about Tsavo National Park | VITA's detail profile | Foster VITA Now | |
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280 Kms North of Nairobi, and 50 kms from Nanyuki town is a 54,000 acre private Ranch owned by Mr. James Small, an American citizen which is known as Mpala Ranch. The ranch borders Loisaba Ranch within the Laikipia district, and shares part of the Uaso Nyiro river as one boundary, which runs on through to the Samburu National Reserve and ends up as the Lorian Swamp. The Northern boundary of Mpala Ranch is another river, known as the Narok. The vegetation of the ranch is dominated by semi arid scrubland with a few open black cotton clearings, its wildlife, (which is fully protected and not culled or hunted) incorporating most of the usual arid land species such as greater kudu, buffalo, sporadic migratory herds of elephant, a few lions, some cheetah and leopards, and a few giraffe, zebra, kongoni and other grazers, but only in small numbers. The ranch hosts pre-university students in a Research facility, where such people can conduct non-intrusive scientific studies connected with their chosen subject. It also supports beef cattle, one herd of which is enclosed in what is known as the Nepeleon Cattle Boma on an escarpment bordering the beautiful valley that leads onto the Uaso Nyiro river, and it was to this "boma" or cattle kraal that orphaned calf of this dead cow came for help, some two weeks after his mother died from gunshot wounds. This mother elephant was in all likelihood a victim of poaching for ivory beyond the borders of the Ranch, but came to safety to die, knowing that by so doing she would leave her little calf amongst friends rather than foes. Elephants are intelligent enough to work all this out for themselves. |
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The Laikipia Plateau is the large stretch of high ground which can broadly be described as the aftermath and now the foothills of the ancient Volcano which gave birth to Mount Kenya, and which is also one of the steps down into the Great Rift Valley that runs from the Red Sea into Mozambique. Much of the Laikipia plateau is semi arid and ranchland, some of it now either owned, or leased, by white Kenyans who have introduced a promising new partnership with the local pastoral tribes, encouraging them to coexist with the wildlife on their land, and utilize it as a valuable and unique resource in a non consumptive manner. Involved in this initiative are rustic luxury lodges catering for high end tourism and tented camps offering many opportunities that are not found in the National Protected Areas. These include camel and horseback riding in beautiful wild country, walking, hiking, and climbing, fishing and tribal cultural activities staged especially for the tourists, along with encouraging the tribal people whose mainstay has always been their livestock, to upgrade their animals. Gift shops in the lodges sell handmade crafts and a percentage of the revenues raised benefit the local people directly through support of their schools, clinics etc. also providing an outlet for their handmade crafts. The people who have long occupied the Laikipia plateau have always lived on a knife edge where droughts and tribal conflicts have been the norm, but are now finding greater benefits from nurturing the wildlife than killing it. Unfortunately, however, the ranches of Laikipia that are prepared to coexist and protect the wildlife on their land are not large enough in terms of space for elephants, who, following ancient migratory routes, traditionally move hundreds of miles, crossing boundaries and borders, and are very much at risk wherever they do so. One of the white owned ranches of Laikipia that provides sanctuary to the elephants that pass through their land is called "Sosian", which is where both orphans "Sosian" and "Selengai" were found, wandering alone, meaning that some disaster has befallen their elephant family, if not on the ranch, then beyond its boundaries |
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The Imenti forest is another small remnant patch of forest East of Mount Kenya between Embu and Meru, harbouring a diminishing number of elephants, whose migration route to the Mount Kenya population has been interrupted by dense human settlement and cultivation. Plans are afoot to try and fence this small forest to protect the smallholdings abutting the forest, preserve the forest itself from illegal logging activities and save the few remaining elephants that still exist there, whose numbers are now few. Orphans "Ndume" and "Malaika" (who died in childbirth aged 11 at the end of 2000) and also"Imenti" and most recently "Wendi" are lucky survivors of the ongoing human/elephant conflict that exists in this area. |
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213 miles from Nairobi and 33 miles north of Isiolo town, the Samburu National Reserve, as the most accessible of the Northern Frontier faunal Sanctuaries, is an extremely popular tourist destination. The Samburu side of the Reserve covers an area of 40 square miles on the northern bank of the Uaso Nyiro river with l0 miles of river frontage. Opposite on the southern Bank, is the Buffalo Springs National Reserve which falls beneath the auspices of the Isiolo County Council and which also has 10 miles of river frontage with a bridge across the river connecting the two. Since all water dependent species in this arid thirstland have to come down to the river to drink, game viewing is easy and tourist clientele easily satisfied without travelling great distances. |
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The Laikipia Plateau is the large stretch of high ground which can broadly be described as the aftermath and now the foothills of the ancient Volcano which gave birth to Mount Kenya, and which is also one of the steps down into the Great Rift Valley that runs from the Red Sea into Mozambique. Much of the Laikipia plateau is semi arid and ranchland, some of it now either owned, or leased, by white Kenyans who have introduced a promising new partnership with the local pastoral tribes, encouraging them to coexist with the wildlife on their land, and utilize it as a valuable and unique resource in a non consumptive manner. Involved in this initiative are rustic luxury lodges catering for high end tourism and tented camps offering many opportunities that are not found in the National Protected Areas. These include camel and horseback riding in beautiful wild country, walking, hiking, and climbing, fishing and tribal cultural activities staged especially for the tourists, along with encouraging the tribal people whose mainstay has always been their livestock, to upgrade their animals. Gift shops in the lodges sell handmade crafts and a percentage of the revenues raised benefit the local people directly through support of their schools, clinics etc. also providing an outlet for their handmade crafts. The people who have long occupied the Laikipia plateau have always lived on a knife edge where droughts and tribal conflicts have been the norm, but are now finding greater benefits from nurturing the wildlife than killing it. Unfortunately, however, the ranches of Laikipia that are prepared to coexist and protect the wildlife on their land are not large enough in terms of space for elephants, who, following ancient migratory routes, traditionally move hundreds of miles, crossing boundaries and borders, and are very much at risk wherever they do so. One of the white owned ranches of Laikipia that provides sanctuary to the elephants that pass through their land is called "Sosian", which is where both orphans "Sosian" and "Selengai" were found, wandering alone, meaning that some disaster has befallen their elephant family, if not on the ranch, then beyond its boundaries |
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The Lewa Downs Conservancy is managed and owned by the Craig family and consists of scenically beautiful low lying arid ranchland below the fertile agricultural wheat and horticultural farms of the upper regions around Mount Kenya. Some 40,000 acres in extent, the Conservancy practices limited traditional beef and dairy farming, benefiting from irrigation from the Ngare Ndare river, a tributary of the Uaso Nyiro flowing through to the Samburu National Reserve, but it is now mainly going over to a wildlife based economy with tourist facilities for game viewing and camping safaris. In addition, it practices consumptive commercial utilisation of wildlife with a "culling quota" issued by the Kenya Wildlife Service. As a member of the Laikipia Wildlife Forum its views on consumptive wildlife utilisation and hunting mirror policies practiced further south in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and are at variance with Kenya's more compassionate conservation ethics. Hunting in particular is viewed by indigenous Africans as an out-moded Colonial relic and as such does not enjoy public endorsement despite being aggressively lobbied by the white dominated Laikipia Wildlife Forum. The Ranch is ring fenced, with gaps to allow the migratory elephant herds to pass through to the Shaba and Samburu National Reserves, and is home to some 28 Black Rhino, introduced in the early eighties, and over 30 White Rhinos introduced from animals originally imported from South Africa. (White Rhino are not indigenous to Kenya in living memory, but the fossils of the Northern White race, which differs slightly from the Southern Whites, have been found.) It holds most of the remaining Grevy Zebra in the country plus a healthy population of common zebra, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, buffalo and other grazing and browsing species including a few Sitatunga brought in from the small surviving Siaya Swamp population of Western Kenya. Recently it has supplied excess giraffe and zebra to restock Meru National Park, where wildlife has been ravaged by years of neglect, and corruption involving the commercial "bushmeat" trade, but where control has now been restored. Our orphan "Lewa" was rescued from this Ranch, after becoming too weak to keep up with the herd. He was just l year old at the time and as such still milk dependent, so his lactating mother must have perished. No calf orphaned under the age of two can survive without milk, and few between the ages of two and five can make it without nutritional supplementation in the form of coconut, which contains the correct fat essential for the health of a growing elephant baby. |
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Ol Malo is another white owned patch of land bordering Loisaba Ranch on the Laikipia Plateau, owned by the Francombe's, who have an up-market tourist lodge called Ol Malo, which means in Samburu " The place of the Greater Kudu". Unfortunately, the decision made by CITES in 2002 to ease the Ivory Ban has led to an upsurge of poaching throughout the Laikipia Plateau and beyond. |
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Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. One of the Conservation Service Centre's more progressive clients is The Wilderness Guardian Company, a community-centred initiative based at the Loisaba Ranch in northern Laikipia. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbours and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. The Wilderness Guardian Company's latest innovation is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project will give the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change, and which yielded three of our orphans - Uaso, Loisaba and Laikipia. |
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The Laikipia district is mainly ranching country, semi arid, a platgeau resulting from volcanic activity from Kenya’s largest mountain, Mt. Kenya, which is over l7,000 ft high, its highest peaks named after famous Masai Chieftains. Since Laikipia is cattle country, it used to be occupied by the Masai tribe, hence most of the names are Masai words. Much of the country is now occupied by large Private Ranches bordered by land occupied by the Samburu tribe, who are an offshoot of the Masai, who remained behind during the tribe’s migration Southwards from the North over 600 years ago. Mpala Ranch is one of the white owned Private Ranches in the area, where the elephants find Sanctuary, but it is too small to harbour them for any length of time. Normally they simply pass through, and many of them have had to run the gauntlet of heavily armed Pokot bandits who hold sway further North still. Our orphan “Napasha” owes his rescue and escape from certain death by starvation to a Samburu herder, who alerted the Ranch owner to his presence. His name, however, is a Pokot word, for many of the herds that traverse Mpala Ranch have run the gauntlet through unfriendly and wild Pokot country where many people own a gun, and indulge in cattle rustling and general banditry, opportunists who are not averse to dealing in ivory as well. Many of the elephants that habitually pass through Mpala Ranch carry bullet wounds, as did a herd seen there round about the time that Napasha was found, so his mother was obviously a victim of poaching. The Samburu people have always co-existed with wild animals, and of all the peoples of Kenya, are probably the most ele-friendly, which is one of the reasons why so many of our orphans come from the Laikipia district. |
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The Taita Hills Sanctuary was once part of private land known as Lualeni Ranch, originally owned by a Briton. However, when the original owner died, Hilton Hotels International purchased 28,000 acres as a tourist venue for their clientele. The Sanctuary lies South East of the Taita Hills, accessed off the road between Voi and the Kenya/Tanzanian border town of Taveta. Its Western boundary abuts Tsavo West National Park, its Northern Boundary privately owned ranchlands abutting Tsavo East National Park and its Southern Boundary, what is left of the original Lualeni Ranch, now occupied by tribesmen and their livestock. Hilton Hotels constructed two large tourist lodges within the Sanctuary, one, named Taita Hills Lodge and a second called Salt Lick Lodge. Taita Hills lodge is modelled on a German Fort, commemorating the fighting that took place in this part of the world during the First World War between the British, who were Colonizers of Kenya, and Germans, colonizers of what used to be Tanganyika, fighting under the command of the legendary General von Lettow Vorbeck who was never defeated. Some famous battles took place here, notably The Battle of Salaita Hill, which resulted in two Victoria Cross Medals for the British, the highest award for outstanding gallantry usually given posthumously. One such VC holder is buried in the War Cemetry in Voi. The second lodge within the Sanctuary is Salt Lick Lodge, comprised of a series of rondavels on stilts overlooking a swampy area of the Bura river which is a popular venue for wild animals, both large and small. Another tourist feature of the Sanctuary is the James Stewart River House, overlooking a series of beautiful pools on the upper reaches of the Bura river, and so named in honour of the famous actor, James Stewart, who starred in “A tale of Africa” funded by the Japanese and filmed by Simon Trevor in the late seventies and early eighties. This house serves as a barbecue venue for group functions and tourists staying at the two Hilton Lodges. At one time the wildlife within the Teita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary enjoyed tight security, but, unhappily, in recent times, the Sanctuary has been somewhat neglected and subjected to rampant bush-meat poaching through the setting of wire snares. The elephants who move through the Sanctuary periodically on migration between Tsavo West and East are now very much at risk due to this rampant bush-meat trade (a living example being our orphan “Burra” who was almost strangled by a wire noose) and also due to the inevitable human/wildlife conflict brought about by the presence of a burgeoning human population on ancient traditional migration routes between the two Tsavos and neighbouring ranchlands. |
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Today, the Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is cut by the main Nairobi - Mombasa road, which links the hinterland of Kenya to the Coast. But, there was a time when this giant Park belonged only to the elephants and other wild animals that inhabited this vast tract of semi-desert. Only the traditional elephant hunters of the Waliangulu tribe ventured into what is now known as the Tsavo National Park, the area being too arid for cultivation, and unsuitable for livestock due to the presence of the tsetse fly which carries trypanosomiasis, deadly to cattle, but to which wild animals are immune. Traditional elephant migration routes between Tsavo West National Park (lying west of the Nairobi/Mombasa railway) and Tsavo East (east of the railway) today are hazardous passages for Tsavo's elephant herds, since they have to pass through settlement and run the gauntlet of snaring and the hostility of agricultural small holdings of the Taita people. Irima is the name of hill situated in Tsavo East National Park, because this young calf was found abandoned in this area he takes his name from this hill, close to where Voi Safari Lodge is situated. The Lodge watering holes are a popular drinking spot for elephants in the dry seasons. |
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Our orphaned Rhino “Shida” is the calf of an elderly Nairobi Park cow named Stella, who, during the night of the 29th October, 2003, lost the struggle to survive another dry season and was found on the morning of 30th, too weak to even rise near the Ivory Burn site in Nairobi National Park, just below the Kenya Wildlife Service’s Headquarter complex. She was euthenased and her 2 month old baby came into our care. The Nairobi National Park came into being in 1948, mainly due to the efforts of two people, Kenya’s then Chief Game Warden, Capt. Archie Ritchie, O.B.E. M.C. and Colonel Mervyn Cowie, appointed the first Director of Kenya’s fledgling National Parks. Writing in the Park’s first handbook, Capt. Ritchie had this to say:- “I want to give an assurance, a guarantee that the Park is wholly “genuine”. Persons visiting it now for the first time may well imagine that its faunal population, varied and teeming as it is, has been laboriously built up, and that many of the animals to be seen have been brought from elsewhere, or at least induced by artifice to come in and dwell. The exact opposite is the case, and the area is essentially the same as when I first took charge of it as a corner of the great Southern Game Reserve in January 1924, and marvelled at the wealth and variety of its wild life….And the beasts are the same as those I found there that long time ago. Some species are now rather more numerous, some rather less, for populations, particularly of migratory or partially migratory species, are subject to periodical downs”. Today, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the same is poignantly true, despite the immense changes that have taken place in the country, except that the word “teeming”, can no longer apply. Everything is far, far fewer, not through the natural “down” that Capt. Ritchie mentions, but due to human expansion that has constricted the animals’ once large dispersal area and brought human habitation right up to every boundary. Some rhinos have been brought in, as have some orphaned hand-reared buffaloes; the African wild dogs are no more and the predator population has been seriously eroded, but the Park remains still a rare jewel in the crown of Kenya’s conservation efforts. No other city in the entire world can boast a natural wilderness within easy reach of its centre, where visitors can spend a magic afternoon viewing a microcosm of the bounty of yore. Nairobi National Park is, indeed, unique – and must be nurtured at all costs, not just for its obvious tourist appeal, and the revenues it brings into the country, but for important therapeutic reasons also. The human soul needs access to Nature to heal its psyche, for humans, whether they acknowledge it or not, are also an integral part of Nature and need the tranquillity wilderness offers to offset the negative impact of stress. More importantly still, the Park serves the vital role of being the very lungs of Nairobi city, its natural vegetation and remnant forests renewing the oxygen levels and cleansing the air of pollution spewed forth from a sprawling city now harbouring close on 3 million human souls. The reason for such a variety of animal life in a tiny Park only 44 square miles in extent is, of course, that small as it is, it includes many different habitats, each harbouring its own typical fauna. The Park comprises open plains, broken bush, some real forest, a permanent river with fringe thickets, luggas, long grass, short grass, flat land and foothills, so a multitude of forms can live in close proximity to one another. On the open plains, grasslands alternate with Acacia dominated savannah, whilst the Athi River, cuts deep gorges of considerable depth and varying width as it winds its way through. The slopes of the gorges that are not sheer rock provide dense cover for many shyer creatures and where there is a good depth of soil large wild figs with spreading crowns, attaining a height of 80 – 100 ft. are plentiful. In areas where the water table is closer to the surface, such as at the Hippo Pools, yellow fever trees form beautiful stands, conspicuous with their sulphur yellow trunks and pale foliage. Stunted whistling thorns predominate in the shallower soils of the open wind swept plains, providing food for browsing species such as giraffe and rhino and on the black cotton soils, the highly nutritious “oat grass” (Themeda triandra) dominates amongst a wide variety of other grasses and legumes. Dry luggas and riverbeds afford places preferred by lions, and the forest which is confined to more broken country on higher ground, shelters forest species such as bushbuck, suni and monkeys. The forest is, in fact, the southern fringe of what used to be the extensive Langata Forest and is comprised of Crotons, Muhugus, Cape Chestnuts and other indigenous species, but because the soil in the section that is in the Park is shallow, the tree growth on the whole does not reach the height of the forest proper. Nevertheless, its air conditioning role is irreplaceable. Hence the Nairobi National Park is a memory that echoes in microcosm the land as it was when it was young and unspoilt one hundred years ago. The variety of species it shelters is unique indeed for such a small area and in its capacity as the lungs of Nairobi, it is, of course, crucial. Yet the future of the Park today is no less certain than it was in Capt. Ritchie’s time. With human settlement right up to the boundaries and the Park electrically fenced on three sides, but not on the fourth, the Park is now more vulnerable than ever. Today the outlet for the migratory inmates of Nairobi National Park is now densely settled and they run the gauntlet every time they set foot beyond that fourth boundary, becoming entangled in snarelines, chased and killed by poachers with packs of dogs, and widely sold in “Jua Kali” butcheries far cheaper than the meat of domestic stock – all part of what is now a commercial bush-meat trade that threatens the very survival of wildlife in this country. Beset by the commercial meat trade, the migrant species return to the sanctuary of the Park in fewer numbers every year, and the dispersal area reservoir which seemed infinite over a hundred years ago, has now largely ceased to exist, likened to an egg timer that has had a hole in the bottom through which the sands of time have been lost. Up until 1992 the possession and sale of game meat was illegal and hence meat poaching could be kept in check. Legalising the possession and sale of game meat has been a mega conservation blunder. Game meat must again be placed off limits, and rapidly so, otherwise East Africa will follow West Africa in becoming a faunal vacuum. The tourist industry will collapse and the people become even more desperate and impoverished. The Nairobi National Park will have to be fenced on its fourth boundary before all is lost, and what can naturally live within such constraints will, and what can’t won’t. Those who lack faith in the ability of Nature to adjust to changing circumstances contend that the Park would then have to be artificially “farmed”, but who, for instance, farms and manipulates the numbers of wild animals in the world famous Ngorongoro Crater, which is only 12 miles across, and has been a closed basin for thousands of years? The answer is, no-one other than Nature through evolution, yet the Crater holds a veritable array of wildlife in spectacular abundance. |
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Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. One of the Conservation Service Centre's more progressive clients is The Wilderness Guardian Company, a community-centred initiative based at the Loisaba Ranch in northern Laikipia. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbours and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. The Wilderness Guardian Company's latest innovation is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project will give the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change, and which yielded three of our orphans - Uaso, Loisaba and Laikipia. |
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213 miles from Nairobi and 33 miles north of Isiolo town, the Samburu National Reserve, as the most accessible of the Northern Frontier faunal Sanctuaries, is an extremely popular tourist destination. The Samburu side of the Reserve covers an area of 40 square miles on the northern bank of the Uaso Nyiro river with l0 miles of river frontage. Opposite on the southern Bank, is the Buffalo Springs National Reserve which falls beneath the auspices of the Isiolo County Council and which also has 10 miles of river frontage with a bridge across the river connecting the two. Since all water dependent species in this arid thirstland have to come down to the river to drink, game viewing is easy and tourist clientele easily satisfied without travelling great distances. The elephants of the mainly arid Northern frontier districts of Kenya, like those of Tsavo, are anchored during the long dry season to the few sources of permanent water and it is then that the poachers are most active, bringing havoc and suffering to the herds. This has been exacerbated by the rapidly expanding human population which has encroached on previously wild lands, cut ancient migration routes genetically embedded in elephant memories and over-run fragile springs and watering systems with increasing numbers of livestock. |
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The Galana River is the lifeblood of Tsavo East National Park, one of the two permanent rivers that serve this arid region. Its source are tributaries that originate in the forested highlands of the Great Rift Valley, and merge near Nairobi to form what is known as the Athi river, so named by the Wakamba tribe that inhabit lands through which it flows on its journey to the Park. It enters the Park and is known by that name until its confluence with the perennial Tsavo river which is fed by the crystal clear waters of Mzima Springs in Tsavo West National Park, (the main water source for the port town of Mombasa). From this point on the river is known as the Galana for the rest of its length through Tsavo East National Park, but it becomes the Sabaki when it leaves the boundary of the Park to flow through the tribal lands of the coastal Giriama people, before pouring into the sea near the Coastal resort of Malindi. Sadly, due to negative farming practices and erosion in the Wakamba country upstream before it enters the Park, the river is subjected to periods of intense flooding during the two rainy seasons of the year, when it becomes a red raging torrent, cutting off access to the Northern Area of Tsavo via the causeway that spans the river near Lugards Falls. Due to this it is responsible for depositing huge loads of topsoil silt into the sea near the Coastal resort of Malindi, which has impacted negatively on the once beautiful Malindi bay and beach as well as having destroyed large stretches of coral reef. On its journey through the Park, however, when not in flood, it is characterised by long slow quiet stretches interspersed with noisy rapids, and supports mid-river islands of bull-rushes and reeds which provide ideal shelter and nesting grounds for Tsavo’s huge biodiversity of water-birds. Its banks are fringed with riparian stands of feathery Tana River poplars, and large trees such as Acacia elatiors, Figs and Tamarinds, and its lower reaches beyond Lugards Falls, by dense thickets of the salt-bush, Sueda. These thickets provide ideal ambush places for the many prides of lions that Tsavo harbours – probably the largest single remaining lion population in the world, since lions elsewhere are becoming endangered. It was here that our orphan “Galana” was found in hiding and it was the denseness of the Salt-bush thickets that saved her from falling prey to the lions once she had been deprived of the protection of her mother and elephant family. |
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There is a place on the infamous Nairobi - Mombasa road, not far from the Buchuma waterholes of Slave Caravan fame in Tsavo East National Park, which is known as "Mackinnon Road", "Mackinnon" being the name of the man who laid the first strip of tar on what was then just a dusty, rutted track linking the capital city of Nairobi with the Coastal Port of Mombasa. This road marked the venue for a British Army Staging Camp during the Second World War, remembered by old-timers because a naďve soldier offered a passing wild elephant a bun, and got killed for his pains" Today, this point on the main highway is marked by a small roadside settlement sporting a mosque and some shops. Our orphan "Lissa" was rescued in the Park not far from Mackinnon Road, found wandering alone, with a back leg that was malformed having healed from an earlier break. She was obviously a poaching victim, and was close to death when rescued, emaciated and starved, yet of the age when she could be given directly to the then Matriarch, "Eleanor" her feeding supplemented with milk. |
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The Nairobi National Park came into being in 1948, mainly due to the efforts of two people, Kenya’s then Chief Game Warden, Capt. Archie Ritchie, O.B.E. M.C. and Colonel Mervyn Cowie, appointed the first Director of Kenya’s fledgling National Parks. Writing in the Park’s first handbook, Capt. Ritchie had this to say:- “I want to give an assurance, a guarantee that the Park is wholly “genuine”. Persons visiting it now for the first time may well imagine that its faunal population, varied and teeming as it is, has been laboriously built up, and that many of the animals to be seen have been brought from elsewhere, or at least induced by artifice to come in and dwell. The exact opposite is the case, and the area is essentially the same as when I first took charge of it as a corner of the great Southern Game Reserve in January 1924, and marvelled at the wealth and variety of its wild life….And the beasts are the same as those I found there that long time ago. Some species are now rather more numerous, some rather less, for populations, particularly of migratory or partially migratory species, are subject to periodical downs”. Today, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the same is poignantly true, despite the immense changes that have taken place in the country, except that the word “teeming”, can no longer apply. Everything is far, far fewer, not through the natural “down” that Capt. Ritchie mentions, but due to human expansion that has constricted the animals’ once large dispersal area and brought human habitation right up to every boundary. Some rhinos have been brought in, as have some orphaned hand-reared buffaloes; the African wild dogs are no more and the predator population has been seriously eroded, but the Park remains still a rare jewel in the crown of Kenya’s conservation efforts. No other city in the entire world can boast a natural wilderness within easy reach of its centre, where visitors can spend a magic afternoon viewing a microcosm of the bounty of yore. Nairobi National Park is, indeed, unique – and must be nurtured at all costs, not just for its obvious tourist appeal, and the revenues it brings into the country, but for important therapeutic reasons also. The human soul needs access to Nature to heal its psyche, for humans, whether they acknowledge it or not, are also an integral part of Nature and need the tranquillity wilderness offers to offset the negative impact of stress. More importantly still, the Park serves the vital role of being the very lungs of Nairobi city, its natural vegetation and remnant forests renewing the oxygen levels and cleansing the air of pollution spewed forth from a sprawling city now harbouring close on 3 million human souls. The reason for such a variety of animal life in a tiny Park only 44 square miles in extent is, of course, that small as it is, it includes many different habitats, each harbouring its own typical fauna. The Park comprises open plains, broken bush, some real forest, a permanent river with fringe thickets, luggas, long grass, short grass, flat land and foothills, so a multitude of forms can live in close proximity to one another. On the open plains, grasslands alternate with Acacia dominated savannah, whilst the Athi River, cuts deep gorges of considerable depth and varying width as it winds its way through. The slopes of the gorges that are not sheer rock provide dense cover for many shyer creatures and where there is a good depth of soil large wild figs with spreading crowns, attaining a height of 80 – 100 ft. are plentiful. In areas where the water table is closer to the surface, such as at the Hippo Pools, yellow fever trees form beautiful stands, conspicuous with their sulphur yellow trunks and pale foliage. Stunted whistling thorns predominate in the shallower soils of the open wind swept plains, providing food for browsing species such as giraffe and rhino and on the black cotton soils, the highly nutritious “oat grass” (Themeda triandra) dominates amongst a wide variety of other grasses and legumes. Dry luggas and riverbeds afford places preferred by lions, and the forest which is confined to more broken country on higher ground, shelters forest species such as bushbuck, suni and monkeys. The forest is, in fact, the southern fringe of what used to be the extensive Langata Forest and is comprised of Crotons, Muhugus, Cape Chestnuts and other indigenous species, but because the soil in the section that is in the Park is shallow, the tree growth on the whole does not reach the height of the forest proper. Nevertheless, its air conditioning role is irreplaceable. Hence the Nairobi National Park is a memory that echoes in microcosm the land as it was when it was young and unspoilt one hundred years ago. The variety of species it shelters is unique indeed for such a small area and in its capacity as the lungs of Nairobi, it is, of course, crucial. Yet the future of the Park today is no less certain than it was in Capt. Ritchie’s time. With human settlement right up to the boundaries and the Park electrically fenced on three sides, but not on the fourth, the Park is now more vulnerable than ever. Today the outlet for the migratory inmates of Nairobi National Park is now densely settled and they run the gauntlet every time they set foot beyond that fourth boundary, becoming entangled in snarelines, chased and killed by poachers with packs of dogs, and widely sold in “Jua Kali” butcheries far cheaper than the meat of domestic stock – all part of what is now a commercial bush-meat trade that threatens the very survival of wildlife in this country. Beset by the commercial meat trade, the migrant species return to the sanctuary of the Park in fewer numbers every year, and the dispersal area reservoir which seemed infinite over a hundred years ago, has now largely ceased to exist, likened to an egg timer that has had a hole in the bottom through which the sands of time have been lost. Up until 1992 the possession and sale of game meat was illegal and hence meat poaching could be kept in check. Legalising the possession and sale of game meat has been a mega conservation blunder. Game meat must again be placed off limits, and rapidly so, otherwise East Africa will follow West Africa in becoming a faunal vacuum. The tourist industry will collapse and the people become even more desperate and impoverished. The Nairobi National Park will have to be fenced on its fourth boundary before all is lost, and what can naturally live within such constraints will, and what can’t won’t. Those who lack faith in the ability of Nature to adjust to changing circumstances contend that the Park would then have to be artificially “farmed”, but who, for instance, farms and manipulates the numbers of wild animals in the world famous Ngorongoro Crater, which is only 12 miles across, and has been a closed basin for thousands of years? The answer is, no-one other than Nature through evolution, yet the Crater holds a veritable array of wildlife in spectacular abundance. |
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The Nairobi National Park came into being in 1948, mainly due to the efforts of two people, Kenya’s then Chief Game Warden, Capt. Archie Ritchie, O.B.E. M.C. and Colonel Mervyn Cowie, appointed the first Director of Kenya’s fledgling National Parks. Writing in the Park’s first handbook, Capt. Ritchie had this to say:- “I want to give an assurance, a guarantee that the Park is wholly “genuine”. Persons visiting it now for the first time may well imagine that its faunal population, varied and teeming as it is, has been laboriously built up, and that many of the animals to be seen have been brought from elsewhere, or at least induced by artifice to come in and dwell. The exact opposite is the case, and the area is essentially the same as when I first took charge of it as a corner of the great Southern Game Reserve in January 1924, and marvelled at the wealth and variety of its wild life….And the beasts are the same as those I found there that long time ago. Some species are now rather more numerous, some rather less, for populations, particularly of migratory or partially migratory species, are subject to periodical downs”. Today, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the same is poignantly true, despite the immense changes that have taken place in the country, except that the word “teeming”, can no longer apply. Everything is far, far fewer, not through the natural “down” that Capt. Ritchie mentions, but due to human expansion that has constricted the animals’ once large dispersal area and brought human habitation right up to every boundary. Some rhinos have been brought in, as have some orphaned hand-reared buffaloes; the African wild dogs are no more and the predator population has been seriously eroded, but the Park remains still a rare jewel in the crown of Kenya’s conservation efforts. No other city in the entire world can boast a natural wilderness within easy reach of its centre, where visitors can spend a magic afternoon viewing a microcosm of the bounty of yore. Nairobi National Park is, indeed, unique – and must be nurtured at all costs, not just for its obvious tourist appeal, and the revenues it brings into the country, but for important therapeutic reasons also. The human soul needs access to Nature to heal its psyche, for humans, whether they acknowledge it or not, are also an integral part of Nature and need the tranquillity wilderness offers to offset the negative impact of stress. More importantly still, the Park serves the vital role of being the very lungs of Nairobi city, its natural vegetation and remnant forests renewing the oxygen levels and cleansing the air of pollution spewed forth from a sprawling city now harbouring close on 3 million human souls. The reason for such a variety of animal life in a tiny Park only 44 square miles in extent is, of course, that small as it is, it includes many different habitats, each harbouring its own typical fauna. The Park comprises open plains, broken bush, some real forest, a permanent river with fringe thickets, luggas, long grass, short grass, flat land and foothills, so a multitude of forms can live in close proximity to one another. On the open plains, grasslands alternate with Acacia dominated savannah, whilst the Athi River, cuts deep gorges of considerable depth and varying width as it winds its way through. The slopes of the gorges that are not sheer rock provide dense cover for many shyer creatures and where there is a good depth of soil large wild figs with spreading crowns, attaining a height of 80 – 100 ft. are plentiful. In areas where the water table is closer to the surface, such as at the Hippo Pools, yellow fever trees form beautiful stands, conspicuous with their sulphur yellow trunks and pale foliage. Stunted whistling thorns predominate in the shallower soils of the open wind swept plains, providing food for browsing species such as giraffe and rhino and on the black cotton soils, the highly nutritious “oat grass” (Themeda triandra) dominates amongst a wide variety of other grasses and legumes. Dry luggas and riverbeds afford places preferred by lions, and the forest which is confined to more broken country on higher ground, shelters forest species such as bushbuck, suni and monkeys. The forest is, in fact, the southern fringe of what used to be the extensive Langata Forest and is comprised of Crotons, Muhugus, Cape Chestnuts and other indigenous species, but because the soil in the section that is in the Park is shallow, the tree growth on the whole does not reach the height of the forest proper. Nevertheless, its air conditioning role is irreplaceable. Hence the Nairobi National Park is a memory that echoes in microcosm the land as it was when it was young and unspoilt one hundred years ago. The variety of species it shelters is unique indeed for such a small area and in its capacity as the lungs of Nairobi, it is, of course, crucial. Yet the future of the Park today is no less certain than it was in Capt. Ritchie’s time. With human settlement right up to the boundaries and the Park electrically fenced on three sides, but not on the fourth, the Park is now more vulnerable than ever. Today the outlet for the migratory inmates of Nairobi National Park is now densely settled and they run the gauntlet every time they set foot beyond that fourth boundary, becoming entangled in snarelines, chased and killed by poachers with packs of dogs, and widely sold in “Jua Kali” butcheries far cheaper than the meat of domestic stock – all part of what is now a commercial bush-meat trade that threatens the very survival of wildlife in this country. Beset by the commercial meat trade, the migrant species return to the sanctuary of the Park in fewer numbers every year, and the dispersal area reservoir which seemed infinite over a hundred years ago, has now largely ceased to exist, likened to an egg timer that has had a hole in the bottom through which the sands of time have been lost. Up until 1992 the possession and sale of game meat was illegal and hence meat poaching could be kept in check. Legalising the possession and sale of game meat has been a mega conservation blunder. Game meat must again be placed off limits, and rapidly so, otherwise East Africa will follow West Africa in becoming a faunal vacuum. The tourist industry will collapse and the people become even more desperate and impoverished. The Nairobi National Park will have to be fenced on its fourth boundary before all is lost, and what can naturally live within such constraints will, and what can’t won’t. Those who lack faith in the ability of Nature to adjust to changing circumstances contend that the Park would then have to be artificially “farmed”, but who, for instance, farms and manipulates the numbers of wild animals in the world famous Ngorongoro Crater, which is only 12 miles across, and has been a closed basin for thousands of years? The answer is, no-one other than Nature through evolution, yet the Crater holds a veritable array of wildlife in spectacular abundance. |
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The Taita Hills Sanctuary was once part of private land known as Lualeni Ranch, originally owned by a Briton. However, when the original owner died, Hilton Hotels International purchased 28,000 acres as a tourist venue for their clientele. The Sanctuary lies South East of the Taita Hills, accessed off the road between Voi and the Kenya/Tanzanian border town of Taveta. Its Western boundary abuts Tsavo West National Park, its Northern Boundary privately owned ranchlands abutting Tsavo East National Park and its Southern Boundary, what is left of the original Lualeni Ranch, now occupied by tribesmen and their livestock. Hilton Hotels constructed two large tourist lodges within the Sanctuary, one, named Taita Hills Lodge and a second called Salt Lick Lodge. Taita Hills lodge is modelled on a German Fort, commemorating the fighting that took place in this part of the world during the First World War between the British, who were Colonizers of Kenya, and Germans, colonizers of what used to be Tanganyika, fighting under the command of the legendary General von Lettow Vorbeck who was never defeated. Some famous battles took place here, notably The Battle of Salaita Hill, which resulted in two Victoria Cross Medals for the British, the highest award for outstanding gallantry usually given posthumously. One such VC holder is buried in the War Cemetry in Voi. The second lodge within the Sanctuary is Salt Lick Lodge, comprised of a series of rondavels on stilts overlooking a swampy area of the Bura river which is a popular venue for wild animals, both large and small. Another tourist feature of the Sanctuary is the James Stewart River House, overlooking a series of beautiful pools on the upper reaches of the Bura river, and so named in honour of the famous actor, James Stewart, who starred in “A tale of Africa” funded by the Japanese and filmed by Simon Trevor in the late seventies and early eighties. This house serves as a barbecue venue for group functions and tourists staying at the two Hilton Lodges. At one time the wildlife within the Teita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary enjoyed tight security, but, unhappily, in recent times, the Sanctuary has been somewhat neglected and subjected to rampant bush-meat poaching through the setting of wire snares. The elephants who move through the Sanctuary periodically on migration between Tsavo West and East are now very much at risk due to this rampant bush-meat trade (a living example being our orphan “Burra” who was almost strangled by a wire noose) and also due to the inevitable human/wildlife conflict brought about by the presence of a burgeoning human population on ancient traditional migration routes between the two Tsavos and neighbouring ranchlands. |
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The name “Kora” is synonymous with George Adamson and his famous lion project, and the birth place of little “Kora” one of the Trust’s most recent orphans. Elephant “Kora”. (so named to identify his origin), is a baby bull of approximately six months old, who was found wandering alone on the 21st April 2005 along a remote road in this extremely arid l,787 square Kms 441,586 acres or 178,780 hectares) of very wild country. The habitat of his birthplace, Kora National Park, is comprised of thorny Commiphora scrub bush thicket, whose flat monotony is relieved by lines of rocky outcrops or inselbergs that rise above the dessicated landscape. However, like Tsavo, two rainy seasons per year transform the arid landscape almost overnight into a startling kaleidoscope of greens, filled with flowering shrubs and creepers, and a hive of activity to ensure the continuity of life. What is now Kora National Park was originally gazetted as a National Reserve on the 1st November 1974, (a National Reserve being an area where wildlife coexists with human activity, and where human interests predominate). Following the brutal murder of George Adamson in 1992, it was accorded National Park status. Only one source of permanent water serves this arid region, and that is Kenya’s largest river, the Tana, which also forms the Park’s Northern boundary. For administrative purposes the Park falls within the Tana River District of the Coast Province of Kenya and is overseen by the Warden of Meru National Park, Mark Jenkins. Kora is the dry season home range of a small population of approximately 110 resident elephants. However, when the natural waterpans fill with rainwater during the land’s two wet seasons a year, it also serves as an important dispersal area for the Meru elephants and other Northern outlying herds, and also for the Tsavo Elephants who are thought to travel to a distant point in Kora known as Roka Gora in order to meet up with friends, a distance of many hundreds of miles. Hence, although Tsavo is 8,000 square miles in extent, it is still not large enough in terms of s p a c e for elephants, a fact emphasized by the study of elephant migration, in which one collared Kora female covers the largest home range currently known to Science in Africa. She travels to a place called Waldena which is only 40 kms. short of Tsavo East’s Northern Ithumba boundary. Besides eking out an existence under extremely challenging environmental conditions, Kora’s elephants constantly face another even more hazardous threat, the Ivory Trade, perpetuated in this region by Somali tribesmen bristling with weaponry whose main means of livelihood is poaching and banditry. |
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Meru National Park was once a National Reserve established as a wildlife sanctuary by the Meru County Council. (A National Reserve is tribal land set aside as an initiative of the respective community for the preservation of wildlife, but inhabited by humans whose activities (mainly pastoral) remain paramount. A National Park, on the other hand, is an area set aside exclusively for wildlife where the interests of wildlife are paramount and no humans have right of abode, other than those that work there). Meru National Reserve, an area of 870 sq. kms, ( 215,000 acres or 87,044 hectares) was bequeathed to the Government by the Meru County Council in 1966 and attained full National Park status thereafter through Legal Notice 478 dated 18th December of that year. As a front-line Park to neighbouring Somalia, it has faced near total collapse on several occasions due to immense poaching for both ivory, rhino horn and the bushmeat trade as well as corrupt management. The habitat is scenically stunning, with the densely populated Nyambeni Mountain range as a back-drop where there is sufficient elevation for the cultivation of tea, coffee and cash crops. Mt. Kenya is visible in the far distance, and, like Kora, there are rocky inselbergs, one of which has the famous Elsa’s Kopje Luxury Lodge built amongst its rocks. The Tana river flows along the Park’s Northern boundary, fed from the Ura and numerous other permanent rivers and springs that rise in the Nyambenis and flow through the Park, fringed with lush riverine vegetation , extensive palm groves, and neighbouring swamplands, contrasting to the arid nature of the Commiphora scrubland of the Park itself, which resembles that of the Northern Area of Tsavo East, but which is blessed with open savannah plains as well. Prior to 1980 Meru National Park held a wide array of animals, including both Grevys and Burchells zebra, gerenuk, Beisa oryx, Reticulated giraffe, all the Big Cats, numerous Black Rhino (and some import Whites from South Africa), as well as numerous other species including large herds of buffalo and some 3,000 elephants. However, all the rhino, most of the elephants save a handful, and almost all the plains animals save the waterbuck (which are considered inedible) were all but totally eliminated after the Government disbanded the National Parks’ Board of Trustees post independence in 1976 and took control. The Park began to recover again under Dr. Leakey’s tenureship, but when he left, it suffered another onslaught, facing collapse again due to corruption, poaching and mismanagement. An injection of foreign capital when Mark Jenkins took charge of Meru in the nineties, plus a donation of all the original species from neighbouring ranches, has returned Meru to its former glory, and today it is the Shop Window for Kenya’s National Parks, and an example of how a Park should be managed. Meru National Park’s first Warden was Peter Jenkins, the father of Mark, and brother of Daphne Sheldrick who served a long apprenticeship under the late David Sheldrick in Tsavo who was his mentor. |
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The Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers over 8,000 - the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this Park. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but Tsavo is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all in perpetuity. The Tsavo National Park is divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Railway. Most of the Park is occupied by ancient gneisses and schists probably more than 600 million years old, in places worn down by weathering to an almost plain-like surface sometimes covered by more recent superficial deposits, although they as the Ngulia and Ndi group of hills in Tsavo West. Millions of years after the formation of the gneisses (in fact, geologically speaking, just yesterday), volcanic eruptions gave rise to two of the Park's most distinctive and scenic features, the Chyulu Hills in the north west and the Yatta Plateau along the Eastern side of the Athi River. The Yatta stretches for about 170 miles rising near Thika beyond Nairobi and ending at a point 20 miles Eastern Park boundary. Opinions differ as to whether this plateau is the result of a flow that filled a long valley of which the sides have subsequently been eroded whilst others surmise that it is the result of the welling up of lava along a series of cracks in the earth's surface on the line indicated by the plateau. The Chuyulu hills consist of a series of recent volcanic cones, some only a few hundred years old, many of which are comprised of volcanic ash, with lava flows that extend down to lower ground in the Mtito Andei Valley and at the famous Mzima Springs, the main source of Mombasa's water supply. The Chuylu Hills, covered in a beautiful mist forest, (and one of the only forests in the making) act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rain that falls on them which finds its way underneath the lava, emerging as crystal clear springs such as Mzima. Shitani ("Devil" in Swahili) is a volcano that stands about halfway up the southern end of the Chyulu range and here there are three craters resulting from movements of the centre of the volcano during eruptions. Basalt lava flows, piles of lava splashes thrown up by lava fountains, surrounding ash fields dotted with volcanic bombs and at the top, encrustations of sulphur deposited during the dying stages of the eruptions, are all there opposite very ancient rocky outjuttings, visible from just one standing position. The Five Sisters Hills near Mzima Springs, like the Chyulus, are also young volcanic cones. Its interesting and varied geology, its interesting history, its great herds of elephant and buffalo, its unique bush lions and rich biodiversity in fauna, flora and insect life make the Tsavo National Park one of the most unique and important National Parks in Kenya and certainly in the world. Here, nothing is contrived, and wild animals have the space they need in a pristine wilderness setting to enjoy the birth-right of all animals, both wild and domesticated - a quality of life. |
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Ol Ari Nyiro Ranch which means in Maasai ‘The place of dark water’ is a 100,000 acre ranch owned by Kuki Gallmann. The ranch is a cattle ranch but also a wildlife sanctuary with a diverse fauna and flora. Situated in North Western Laikipia, on the shoulder of the Rift Valley, commanding stunning views down the Mukutan gorge which sweeps to Lake Baringo on the Rift floor. On the North Western boundary of the ranch are the Pokot tribal lands, an inhospitable people often in conflict with other tribes and wildlife, and the South Eastern boundary Kikuyu settlements. The ranch has a variety of terrain from savanna to hills covered with wild sage, Leleshwa and thorn trees, rugged gorges to forested canyons. The elephants in this region travel huge distances, streaking through habitation and community lands in the cover of darkness, until they find themselves in areas that they know to be safe. North they travel as far as Samburu National Reserve, the Mathews Range and the Ndoto Mountains, and to the South they travel through the ranch lands of Laikipia, Rumuruti forest and sometimes as far as the Aberdare Mountains. But, particularly to the South, the corridors they have used in the past are fast becoming settlement and the elephant’s are involved in more and more human wildlife conflict, and very often KWS is forced to shoot ‘Problem Elephants’. The problem is of course the human population increase which is fast eating into the elephant’s range lands. There are some communities however, particularly amongst the pastoralist Samburu tribes, that are fast learning that their wildlife heritage is their greatest asset and Group Ranches are preserving their wildlife and encouraging tourist development and this is most encouraging. |
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The mineral rich area where little Zurura was rescued from a pit dug for ruby mining purposes lies between the Southern section of Tsavo West National Park and Tsavo East National Park to the North East, and has been a migratory route for elephants throughout millennia. Elephants traversed this country long before it became inhabited by mankind and of course long before both Tsavo West and Tsavo East were proclaimed National Parks in 1948, and as such an official Sanctuary for wildlife. Even in 1948 the corridor between these two Parks was largely uninhabited, but for workers on what were then White and Asian owned Sisal Estates and Ranches in the area. Today, in Independent Kenya, the area is comprised of tribal Group Ranches inhabited by a mixture of Kenyan tribes, many of whom have been attracted to this particular region by the discovery of rubies and Tsavorite gemstones in the area. However, the land is viewed as the tribal heritage of the Wataita and Wataveta people, who as agriculturalists are definitely not “ele friendly”. At one time the Taita Range of high mountains was the tribal stronghold of the Taita people who were fearful to leave their upland stronghold for fear of falling prey to the warlike pastoral Orma and Masai tribes who conducted periodic raids against others in the very early days, and particularly any that harboured livestock. As agriculturalists, these two tribes have a reputation of being particularly hostile to elephants, viewing them as “problem animals” that destroy their livelihood in the form of crops planted around their tribal homesteads in what is essentially a very arid region. In modern times these people have proliferated and expanded beyond their mountain refuge, and the elephants’ traditional corridor between what is now Tsavo West and Tsavo East is definitely un-friendly terrain insofar as elephants are concerned – a place where tribesman “feast” on unfortunate stragglers who find themselves exposed betwixt and between the two Tsavos, unsuccessful in having been able to streak safely through under cover of darkness. Many found bogged in mudholes or having fallen into pit-traps and wells have been brutally set upon by irate tribesmen, and ended up being “feasted” upon by meat hungry hordes. A litany of such incidents appear from time to time in the local Press, and make disturbing reading, especially since the Tourist Industry brings billions into the country each year, and happens to be both the country’s main source of revenue and an important means of employment for many such tribesmen. Little Zurura is one tiny baby who fell into a deep pit dug for rubies within this migratory corridor. By daylight, his elephant family had long gone, mindful that they must reach safety before being discovered in such dangerous terrain. His muffled cries drew the attention of the opportunists who were excavating for rubies in the area, and led them to the pit into which he had fallen. Seeing this as a possible good omen, in that they had been led to this particular place for a reason, (the reason being that it could be where the rubies were), they spared him, and having hauled him out, took him to the nearby Mwatate Police Station, first having written the name “Zurura” on his ears in felt pen which, in Swahili, is the term for “The Wanderer”. |
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The mineral rich area where Challa was rescued lies between the Southern section of Tsavo West National Park and Tsavo East National Park to the North East, and has been a migratory route for elephants throughout millennia. Elephants traversed this country long before it became inhabited by mankind and of course long before both Tsavo West and Tsavo East were proclaimed National Parks in 1948, and as such an official Sanctuary for wildlife. Even in 1948 the corridor between these two Parks was largely uninhabited, but for workers on what were then White and Asian owned Sisal Estates and Ranches in the area. Today, in Independent Kenya, the area is comprised of tribal Group Ranches inhabited by a mixture of Kenyan tribes, many of whom have been attracted to this particular region by the discovery of rubies and Tsavorite gemstones in the area. However, the land is viewed as the tribal heritage of the Wataita and Wataveta people, who as agriculturalists are definitely not “ele friendly” and many of whom have large herds of livestock. At one time the Taita Range of high mountains was the tribal stronghold of the Taita people who were fearful to leave their upland stronghold for fear of falling prey to the warlike pastoral Orma and Masai tribes who conducted periodic raids against others in the very early days, and particularly any that harboured livestock. As agriculturalists, these two tribes have a reputation of being particularly hostile to elephants, viewing them as “problem animals” that destroy their livelihood in the form of crops planted around their tribal homesteads in what is essentially a very arid region. In modern times these people have proliferated and expanded beyond their mountain refuge, and the elephants’ traditional corridor between what is now Tsavo West and Tsavo East is definitely un-friendly terrain insofar as elephants are concerned – a place where tribesman “feast” on unfortunate stragglers who find themselves exposed betwixt and between the two Tsavos, unsuccessful in having been able to streak safely through under cover of darkness. Many found bogged in mudholes or having fallen into pit-traps and wells have been brutally set upon by irate tribesmen, and ended up being “feasted” upon by meat hungry hordes. A litany of such incidents appear from time to time in the local Press, and make disturbing reading, especially since the Tourist Industry brings billions into the country each year, and happens to be both the country’s main source of revenue and an important means of employment for many such tribesmen. In Challa's case because of the extensive work of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Ziwani desnaring team, sponsored by WSPA, educating the community paid dividends. When this unfortunate desperate orphaned elephant calf latched on to a herd of cattle for comfort and companionship the community were sympathetic to his plight and didn't harm him, instead they sent a message to The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's desnaring team and KWS to ensure that the calf was rescued, and some individuals from that same community were very active and helpful in assisting with his capture and rescue. |
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There is an emerging network of conservation areas which include the Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba National Reserves, as well as Meru National Park, the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and the community conservation areas of Namunyak, Il Ngwezi, Lekurruki, Kalama and West Gate. This is an evolving endeavour to interest local pastoral communities in wildlife based conservation, rather than the livestock that has formerly been their mainstay, in order to retain an ecosystem through the protection of large areas of land that will allow the continued migration of wildlife. Such areas are especially crucial to elephants, who need space to migrate throughout their natural range, following migration routes that are imprinted in their giant genetic memory, established long before a burgeoning human population interrupted this age old pattern. It is within the West Gate Conservation Area, which lies North of the West Gate of the Samburu National Park, between that and a small Samburu town called Wamba, that little Loijuk was found, and so named by the Samburu Pastoralists who found her orphaned, and rescued her in an area so named. Establishing security for wildlife and the human population in what is becoming known as the Northern Rangelands Conservation Area is paramount to the long-term sustainability of smaller wildlife refuges such as Samburu, Shaba, Meru, Bisandadi and Kora which will also provide an important buffer and dispersal area for these wildlife refuges. Given protection, the extensive Northern Rangelands Conservation area can recover its once species abundance and diversity for the semi-arid Northern Frontier of Kenya embodies a rich heritage and a precious heritage, that will in the future ensure a sustained flow of economic returns for the communities that live there through wildlife based enterprises that will not impact negatively on the environment. |
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Amboseli National Park is world famous for its scenic beauty with towering Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, but also for its largely undisturbed elephant population, the only elephant population on the entire African continent that has not suffered massive ivory poaching, and whose family structure is still largely intact. Numbering just over 1,000, this population has provided the baseline for elephant research for the past 28 years, in a detailed study where every individual is known and its life documented by resident Scientists who monitor their lives on a daily basis. Cynthia Moss has studied the female units and Dr. Joyce Poole the bulls and elephant communication and much of what is known about the nature of elephants today is a result of this research. The National Park and abutting Game Reserve embody five main wildlife habitats, plus a generally dry lake bed known as Amboseli from which the Park takes its name. There are open plains; stands of yellow-barked acacia woodland and doum palm groves, swamps and marshes fed from the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, rocky lava strewn thornbush country, and at the western end of the Reserve, the massif Oldoinyo Orok rising to over 8,300 ft which is still for the most part zoologically largely unexplored. Everywhere, the landscape is dominated by snow-capped Kilimanjaro immediately to the south which at 19,340 ft is Africa's highest mountain and a fitting backdrop to this important wild region where the pastoral Masai people and their cattle have coexisted in harmony with most wild creatures for many a century, killing only the lions in cultural rituals, but more recently the rhinos for the price of the horn. Protest spearing of some elephants has also occurred in recent times due to revenue sharing disputes. Our orphan "Edo"was the son of a famous Amboseli elephant Matriarch known as Emily, part of the "E" family, who died as a result of garbage at one of the Lodge rubbish pits. As the only Amboseli calf not to simply provide another statistic for the Scientific study, he is indeed fortunate and ironically he owes his life to a Japanese Film Unit who was filming his family at the time, and who could not bear to see the endearing little star of their film simply wither away and die. When his mother perished Edo was just 6 months old, and as such still milk dependent, and although he had a lactating sister, she would not allow him to suckle. |
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The Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy is a 90,000 acre wildlife reserve within Laikipia district, situated between the foothills of the Aberdares and the magnificent snowcapped Mount Kenya. The nearest town is Nanyuki. At one time the rolling savannahs of this area which was then owned by the Delamere family, equalled the Masai Mara in its abundance of wildlife, with grazing multitudes present in countless thousands. It was also where the late David Sheldrick, whose father build the first “Treetops” on his farm, spent most of his childhood years. Today, the Ranch still harbours a wide range of indigenous wildlife, including elephants, though in greatly reduced numbers. It is also home to non-indigenous chimpanzees, mainly confiscated from illegal dealers. These are confined within a fenced off area within the original Sweetwaters Game Sanctuary, which, whilst part of the greater Ol Pejeta, was set aside exclusively as a wildlife Sanctuary mainly to protect the endangered Black Rhino. At that point in time the focus of Ol Pejeta was a cattle ranching, but in 2004, it was purchased by Fauna and Flora International, a UK based Conservation Organization and its focus changed to wildlife conservation. The Sweetwaters Game Sanctuary will now be extended to encompass the entire ranching area, thereby creating the Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy with the aim of generating profit from wildlife tourism and complementary activities for reinvestment into community development within the local area. Cattle ranching will remain one of Ol Pejeta’s activities, but wildlife based conservation and tourism will henceforth become its main focus. |
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Amboseli National Park is world famous for its scenic beauty with towering Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, but also for its largely undisturbed elephant population, the only elephant population on the entire African continent that has not suffered massive ivory poaching, and whose family structure is still largely intact. Numbering just over 1,000, this population has provided the baseline for elephant research for the past 28 years, in a detailed study where every individual is known and its life documented by resident Scientists who monitor their lives on a daily basis. Cynthia Moss has studied the female units and Dr. Joyce Poole the bulls and elephant communication and much of what is known about the nature of elephants today is a result of this research. The National Park and abutting Game Reserve embody five main wildlife habitats, plus a generally dry lake bed known as Amboseli from which the Park takes its name. There are open plains; stands of yellow-barked acacia woodland and doum palm groves, swamps and marshes fed from the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, rocky lava strewn thornbush country, and at the western end of the Reserve, the massif Oldoinyo Orok rising to over 8,300 ft which is still for the most part zoologically largely unexplored. Everywhere, the landscape is dominated by snow-capped Kilimanjaro immediately to the south which at 19,340 ft is Africa's highest mountain and a fitting backdrop to this important wild region where the pastoral Masai people and their cattle have coexisted in harmony with most wild creatures for many a century, killing only the lions in cultural rituals, but more recently the rhinos for the price of the horn. Protest spearing of some elephants has also occurred in recent times due to revenue sharing disputes. |
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The Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers over 8,000 - the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this Park. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but Tsavo is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all in perpetuity. The Tsavo National Park is divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Railway. Most of the Park is occupied by ancient gneisses and schists probably more than 600 million years old, in places worn down by weathering to an almost plain-like surface sometimes covered by more recent superficial deposits, although they as the Ngulia and Ndi group of hills in Tsavo West. Millions of years after the formation of the gneisses (in fact, geologically speaking, just yesterday), volcanic eruptions gave rise to two of the Park's most distinctive and scenic features, the Chyulu Hills in the north west and the Yatta Plateau along the Eastern side of the Athi River. The Yatta stretches for about 170 miles rising near Thika beyond Nairobi and ending at a point 20 miles Eastern Park boundary. Opinions differ as to whether this plateau is the result of a flow that filled a long valley of which the sides have subsequently been eroded whilst others surmise that it is the result of the welling up of lava along a series of cracks in the earth's surface on the line indicated by the plateau. The Chuyulu hills consist of a series of recent volcanic cones, some only a few hundred years old, many of which are comprised of volcanic ash, with lava flows that extend down to lower ground in the Mtito Andei Valley and at the famous Mzima Springs, the main source of Mombasa's water supply. The Chuylu Hills, covered in a beautiful mist forest, (and one of the only forests in the making) act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rain that falls on them which finds its way underneath the lava, emerging as crystal clear springs such as Mzima. Shitani ("Devil" in Swahili) is a volcano that stands about halfway up the southern end of the Chyulu range and here there are three craters resulting from movements of the centre of the volcano during eruptions. Basalt lava flows, piles of lava splashes thrown up by lava fountains, surrounding ash fields dotted with volcanic bombs and at the top, encrustations of sulphur deposited during the dying stages of the eruptions, are all there opposite very ancient rocky outjuttings, visible from just one standing position. The Five Sisters Hills near Mzima Springs, like the Chyulus, are also young volcanic cones. Its interesting and varied geology, its interesting history, its great herds of elephant and buffalo, its unique bush lions and rich biodiversity in fauna, flora and insect life make the Tsavo National Park one of the most unique and important National Parks in Kenya and certainly in the world. Here, nothing is contrived, and wild animals have the space they need in a pristine wilderness setting to enjoy the birth-right of all animals, both wild and domesticated - a quality of life. |
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The Chyulu range of hills, of recent origin, overlooking the 3,000 sq. miles of Tsavo West National Park are about 50 miles long flanked by lava fields some 5 miles wide. The hills encompass some 600 volcanic cones, with lava flows emenating from them. Some of these cones are very recent in origin, one in particular known as “Shaitani” (the Swahili word for “devil), which is visible from the Kilaguni Lodge, and which is still unvegetated. It has 8 small craters, a sulphur encrustation near the summit and a lava flow that extends 5 miles from the cone. Local folklore tells of glowing clouds and strange sounds emitted by this cone, indicating that the last eruption was probably only about 100 years ago. At one point in the Park visitors can see this young lava flow, turn round and also see basement hills that are 2 billion years old, formed when the earth itself was young. The entire Chyulu range, believed to be only about 600 years old, is comprised of the ash from the volcanic activity that created them The hills are clothed in a beautiful emerging mist forest, one of the few areas in the world where a forest is actually in the making. Being comprised of ash there is no surface water on the hills themselves, but the heavy morning dews and mists attracted by the forest filter through the ash to the basement complex beneath to appear as crystal clear springs both within and outside the Park. One such spring is the famous Mzima , which yields the bulk of water for the coastal town of Mombasa as well as being Tsavo West’s main tourist attraction and a breeding ground for hippo and other aquatic species. Unfortunately, despite the area having been recently declared a National Park, illegal settlement and the illegal logging of hardwood trees threaten the Chyulus emerging forest, already home to some endemic species. The illegal harvesting of the two species of sandalwood trees (Osyris lanciolata and Osyrus compressa) is huge business in Kenya for the wood fetches K. Shs. 80/- per kilo and has a ready market in India and Norway where it is used in the manufacture of soaps, perfumes and other beauty products. The illegal snaring of animals for the bushmeat trade is also taking a heavy toll of the wildlife that dwells both within the forest and in the community area bordering the hills, where the animals have to come to drink. The Trust funds and manages a fulltime De-Snaring anti-poaching presence in the area in an attempt to combat both these evils. |
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The Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy is a 90,000 acre wildlife reserve within Laikipia district, situated between the foothills of the Aberdares and the magnificent snowcapped Mount Kenya. The nearest town is Nanyuki. At one time the rolling savannahs of this area which was then owned by the Delamere family, equalled the Masai Mara in its abundance of wildlife, with grazing multitudes present in countless thousands. It was also where the late David Sheldrick, whose father built the first “Treetops” on his farm, spent most of his childhood years. Today, the Ranch still harbours a wide range of indigenous wildlife, including elephants, though in greatly reduced numbers. It is also home to non-indigenous chimpanzees, mainly confiscated from illegal dealers. These are confined within a fenced off area within the original Sweetwaters Game Sanctuary, which, whilst part of the greater Ol Pejeta, was set aside exclusively as a wildlife Sanctuary mainly to protect the endangered Black Rhino. At that point in time the focus of Ol Pejeta was a cattle ranching, but in 2004, it was purchased by Fauna and Flora International, a UK based Conservation Organization and its focus changed to wildlife conservation. The Sweetwaters Game Sanctuary will now be extended to encompass the entire ranching area, thereby creating the Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy with the aim of generating profit from wildlife tourism and complementary activities for reinvestment into community development within the local area. Cattle ranching will remain one of Ol Pejeta’s activities, but wildlife based conservation and tourism will henceforth become its main focus. |
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The Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers over 8,000 - the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this Park. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but Tsavo is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all in perpetuity. The Tsavo National Park is divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Railway. Most of the Park is occupied by ancient gneisses and schists probably more than 600 million years old, in places worn down by weathering to an almost plain-like surface sometimes covered by more recent superficial deposits, although they as the Ngulia and Ndi group of hills in Tsavo West. Millions of years after the formation of the gneisses (in fact, geologically speaking, just yesterday), volcanic eruptions gave rise to two of the Park's most distinctive and scenic features, the Chyulu Hills in the north west and the Yatta Plateau along the Eastern side of the Athi River. The Yatta stretches for about 170 miles rising near Thika beyond Nairobi and ending at a point 20 miles Eastern Park boundary. Opinions differ as to whether this plateau is the result of a flow that filled a long valley of which the sides have subsequently been eroded whilst others surmise that it is the result of the welling up of lava along a series of cracks in the earth's surface on the line indicated by the plateau. The Chuyulu hills consist of a series of recent volcanic cones, some only a few hundred years old, many of which are comprised of volcanic ash, with lava flows that extend down to lower ground in the Mtito Andei Valley and at the famous Mzima Springs, the main source of Mombasa's water supply. The Chuylu Hills, covered in a beautiful mist forest, (and one of the only forests in the making) act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rain that falls on them which finds its way underneath the lava, emerging as crystal clear springs such as Mzima. Shitani ("Devil" in Swahili) is a volcano that stands about halfway up the southern end of the Chyulu range and here there are three craters resulting from movements of the centre of the volcano during eruptions. Basalt lava flows, piles of lava splashes thrown up by lava fountains, surrounding ash fields dotted with volcanic bombs and at the top, encrustations of sulphur deposited during the dying stages of the eruptions, are all there opposite very ancient rocky outjuttings, visible from just one standing position. The Five Sisters Hills near Mzima Springs, like the Chyulus, are also young volcanic cones. Its interesting and varied geology, its interesting history, its great herds of elephant and buffalo, its unique bush lions and rich biodiversity in fauna, flora and insect life make the Tsavo National Park one of the most unique and important National Parks in Kenya and certainly in the world. Here, nothing is contrived, and wild animals have the space they need in a pristine wilderness setting to enjoy the birth-right of all animals, both wild and domesticated - a quality of life. |
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Two very prominent landmarks in the far Northern Frontier of Kenya are the Mathews range of Hills, and the Ndoto range of hills, mountain ranges and important water catchments for the arid desert country that surrounds them. Between these two mountain ranges lies the largest and most beautiful sand lugga of the North, fringed by tall shady Acacias, Tamarinds and wild Figs and an important tourist destination for those who like walking with, or riding camels. The lugga is dry for the greater part of the year, and is an important watering place for the pastoral Samburu people and their livestock, who dig deep wells in the sand to access ground reserves, hauling the water up in buckets and pouring it into shallow drinking troughs for their livestock. The elephants also rely on the ground water of the Milgis lugga, and as they crowd around such places that have already been excavated by humans, sometimes the sandy sides cave in under their great weight, and a baby finds itself tumbling down to the bottom, trapped beyond trunk reach of the adults who are unable to extract it. Furthermore, harassed by humans during their long distance travels during which they have to cross densely populated areas, the elephants of this region are extremely fearful of humans, and are in a hurry to quench their thirst and move on, usually under cover of darkness, unable to risk tarrying too long in order to remain with one of their number for fear of jeopardizing the survival of the entire herd. The emotional heartache of an elephant family who endures this kind of separation from a loved baby can only be imagined, but the elephants of the North are beleaguered on a daily basis, many shot as “problem animals” when the real problem, of course, is the burgeoning human population that has occupied many of their ancient migration routes. Such was the fate of little 4 week old Lesanju, who was one baby fortunate enough to be pulled free by tribesmen, and brought to our doorstep in a Helicopter at lunch time on Sunday 15th October courtesy of Mr. Halvor Astrup of Enoiset Ranch and his Helicopter pilot, Phil Mathews who was accompanied by Helen DeFrayne and Peter Illsley of the Milgis Trust, who coordinated the rescue in conjunction with the Samburu tribesmen of the area. The Milgis Trust was set up to provide security to the wildlife and currently supports 12 ranges employed from the local Samburu community within the region. The rangers working close to the tribal Chiefs and Elders and in conjunction with the Kenya Wildlife Server and other community conservancies monitor and actively report any incidences of dustruction and poaching. |
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There is an emerging network of conservation areas which include the Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba National Reserves, as well as Meru National Park, the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and the community conservation areas of Namunyak, Il Ngwezi, Lekurruki, Kalama and West Gate. This is an evolving endeavour to interest local pastoral communities in wildlife based conservation, rather than the livestock that has formerly been their mainstay, in order to retain an ecosystem through the protection of large areas of land that will allow the continued migration of wildlife. Such areas are especially crucial to elephants, who need space to migrate throughout their natural range, following migration routes that are imprinted in their giant genetic memory, established long before a burgeoning human population interrupted this age old pattern. It is within the West Gate Conservation Area, which lies North of the West Gate of the Samburu National Park, between that and a small Samburu town called Wamba, that little Loijuk was found, and so named by the Samburu Pastoralists who found her orphaned, and rescued her in an area so named. Establishing security for wildlife and the human population in what is becoming known as the Northern Rangelands Conservation Area is paramount to the long-term sustainability of smaller wildlife refuges such as Samburu, Shaba, Meru, Bisandadi and Kora which will also provide an important buffer and dispersal area for these wildlife refuges. Given protection, the extensive Northern Rangelands Conservation area can recover its once species abundance and diversity for the semi-arid Northern Frontier of Kenya embodies a rich heritage and a precious heritage, that will in the future ensure a sustained flow of economic returns for the communities that live there through wildlife based enterprises that will not impact negatively on the environment. |
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The Chyulu range of hills, of recent origin, overlooking the 3,000 sq. miles of Tsavo West National Park are about 50 miles long flanked by lava fields some 5 miles wide. The hills encompass some 600 volcanic cones, with lava flows emenating from them. Some of these cones are very recent in origin, one in particular known as “Shaitani” (the Swahili word for “devil), which is visible from the Kilaguni Lodge, and which is still unvegetated. It has 8 small craters, a sulphur encrustation near the summit and a lava flow that extends 5 miles from the cone. Local folklore tells of glowing clouds and strange sounds emitted by this cone, indicating that the last eruption was probably only about 100 years ago. At one point in the Park visitors can see this young lava flow, turn round and also see basement hills that are 2 billion years old, formed when the earth itself was young. The entire Chyulu range, believed to be only about 600 years old, is comprised of the ash from the volcanic activity that created them The hills are clothed in a beautiful emerging mist forest, one of the few areas in the world where a forest is actually in the making. Being comprised of ash there is no surface water on the hills themselves, but the heavy morning dews and mists attracted by the forest filter through the ash to the basement complex beneath to appear as crystal clear springs both within and outside the Park. One such spring is the famous Mzima , which yields the bulk of water for the coastal town of Mombasa as well as being Tsavo West’s main tourist attraction and a breeding ground for hippo and other aquatic species. Unfortunately, despite the area having been recently declared a National Park, illegal settlement and the illegal logging of hardwood trees threaten the Chyulus emerging forest, already home to some endemic species. The illegal harvesting of the two species of sandalwood trees (Osyris lanciolata and Osyrus compressa) is huge business in Kenya for the wood fetches K. Shs. 80/- per kilo and has a ready market in India and Norway where it is used in the manufacture of soaps, perfumes and other beauty products. The illegal snaring of animals for the bushmeat trade is also taking a heavy toll of the wildlife that dwells both within the forest and in the community area bordering the hills, where the animals have to come to drink. The Trust funds and manages a fulltime De-Snaring anti-poaching presence in the area in an attempt to combat both these evils. |
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The Nairobi National Park came into being in 1948, mainly due to the efforts of two people, Kenya’s then Chief Game Warden, Capt. Archie Ritchie, O.B.E. M.C. and Colonel Mervyn Cowie, appointed the first Director of Kenya’s fledgling National Parks. Writing in the Park’s first handbook, Capt. Ritchie had this to say:- “I want to give an assurance, a guarantee that the Park is wholly “genuine”. Persons visiting it now for the first time may well imagine that its faunal population, varied and teeming as it is, has been laboriously built up, and that many of the animals to be seen have been brought from elsewhere, or at least induced by artifice to come in and dwell. The exact opposite is the case, and the area is essentially the same as when I first took charge of it as a corner of the great Southern Game Reserve in January 1924, and marvelled at the wealth and variety of its wild life….And the beasts are the same as those I found there that long time ago. Some species are now rather more numerous, some rather less, for populations, particularly of migratory or partially migratory species, are subject to periodical downs”. Today, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the same is poignantly true, despite the immense changes that have taken place in the country, except that the word “teeming”, can no longer apply. Everything is far, far fewer, not through the natural “down” that Capt. Ritchie mentions, but due to human expansion that has constricted the animals’ once large dispersal area and brought human habitation right up to every boundary. Some rhinos have been brought in, as have some orphaned hand-reared buffaloes; the African wild dogs are no more and the predator population has been seriously eroded, but the Park remains still a rare jewel in the crown of Kenya’s conservation efforts. No other city in the entire world can boast a natural wilderness within easy reach of its centre, where visitors can spend a magic afternoon viewing a microcosm of the bounty of yore. Nairobi National Park is, indeed, unique – and must be nurtured at all costs, not just for its obvious tourist appeal, and the revenues it brings into the country, but for important therapeutic reasons also. The human soul needs access to Nature to heal its psyche, for humans, whether they acknowledge it or not, are also an integral part of Nature and need the tranquillity wilderness offers to offset the negative impact of stress. More importantly still, the Park serves the vital role of being the very lungs of Nairobi city, its natural vegetation and remnant forests renewing the oxygen levels and cleansing the air of pollution spewed forth from a sprawling city now harbouring close on 3 million human souls. The reason for such a variety of animal life in a tiny Park only 44 square miles in extent is, of course, that small as it is, it includes many different habitats, each harbouring its own typical fauna. The Park comprises open plains, broken bush, some real forest, a permanent river with fringe thickets, luggas, long grass, short grass, flat land and foothills, so a multitude of forms can live in close proximity to one another. On the open plains, grasslands alternate with Acacia dominated savannah, whilst the Athi River, cuts deep gorges of considerable depth and varying width as it winds its way through. The slopes of the gorges that are not sheer rock provide dense cover for many shyer creatures and where there is a good depth of soil large wild figs with spreading crowns, attaining a height of 80 – 100 ft. are plentiful. In areas where the water table is closer to the surface, such as at the Hippo Pools, yellow fever trees form beautiful stands, conspicuous with their sulphur yellow trunks and pale foliage. Stunted whistling thorns predominate in the shallower soils of the open wind swept plains, providing food for browsing species such as giraffe and rhino and on the black cotton soils, the highly nutritious “oat grass” (Themeda triandra) dominates amongst a wide variety of other grasses and legumes. Dry luggas and riverbeds afford places preferred by lions, and the forest which is confined to more broken country on higher ground, shelters forest species such as bushbuck, suni and monkeys. The forest is, in fact, the southern fringe of what used to be the extensive Langata Forest and is comprised of Crotons, Muhugus, Cape Chestnuts and other indigenous species, but because the soil in the section that is in the Park is shallow, the tree growth on the whole does not reach the height of the forest proper. Nevertheless, its air conditioning role is irreplaceable. Hence the Nairobi National Park is a memory that echoes in microcosm the land as it was when it was young and unspoilt one hundred years ago. The variety of species it shelters is unique indeed for such a small area and in its capacity as the lungs of Nairobi, it is, of course, crucial. Yet the future of the Park today is no less certain than it was in Capt. Ritchie’s time. With human settlement right up to the boundaries and the Park electrically fenced on three sides, but not on the fourth, the Park is now more vulnerable than ever. Today the outlet for the migratory inmates of Nairobi National Park is now densely settled and they run the gauntlet every time they set foot beyond that fourth boundary, becoming entangled in snarelines, chased and killed by poachers with packs of dogs, and widely sold in “Jua Kali” butcheries far cheaper than the meat of domestic stock – all part of what is now a commercial bush-meat trade that threatens the very survival of wildlife in this country. Beset by the commercial meat trade, the migrant species return to the sanctuary of the Park in fewer numbers every year, and the dispersal area reservoir which seemed infinite over a hundred years ago, has now largely ceased to exist, likened to an egg timer that has had a hole in the bottom through which the sands of time have been lost. Up until 1992 the possession and sale of game meat was illegal and hence meat poaching could be kept in check. Legalising the possession and sale of game meat has been a mega conservation blunder. Game meat must again be placed off limits, and rapidly so, otherwise East Africa will follow West Africa in becoming a faunal vacuum. The tourist industry will collapse and the people become even more desperate and impoverished. The Nairobi National Park will have to be fenced on its fourth boundary before all is lost, and what can naturally live within such constraints will, and what can’t won’t. Those who lack faith in the ability of Nature to adjust to changing circumstances contend that the Park would then have to be artificially “farmed”, but who, for instance, farms and manipulates the numbers of wild animals in the world famous Ngorongoro Crater, which is only 12 miles across, and has been a closed basin for thousands of years? The answer is, no-one other than Nature through evolution, yet the Crater holds a veritable array of wildlife in spectacular abundance. |
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The Masai Mara and adjoining Loita plains form the northernmost part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, a l0,000 sq. mile area encompassing the annual movements of its migratory wildebeest. The Serengeti is in Tanzania and the Mara in Kenya. The Mara receives the highest annual rainfall (some 53 inches) with rain falling throughout the year peaking in December, January and April and today provides the dry season refuge for the great Serengeti grazing hordes since the grass here is still plentiful when the Serengeti plains have dried out. Prior to the 1960's only some Serengeti wildebeest spilled over into the Masai Mara in very dry years and most wildebeest found in the Mara belonged to the separate Loita population seasonally moving between the Loita plains in wet months and the lusher Mara during the dry months. The Serengeti wildebeest population peaked at about 1.3 million in the 1960's and 1970's and then began to utilise the Masai Mara as their dry season range. However, the commercial trade in "bushmeat" and an expanding human population is currently taking a very heavy toll of numbers, although the still vast assemblage of ungulates annually moving through the ecosystem remains the greatest wildlife spectacle on earth and is known as "the migration", attracting tourists from all over the world being the last remaining migration of large mammals on earth. When it is wet in the Serengeti the wildebeest herds congregate on the short grass plains of the South- eastern part of the ecosystem to give birth en masse with 80% of the females calving within a few weeks. Early in the dry season, they stream en masse through the longer grass plains and on to the Western Corridor and as their food supply diminishes, they move into the northern Serengeti woodlands spreading out but moving North in response to rainfall and forage, eventually arriving in the Mara in June or July. The "crossings" on the Mara river afford a thrilling spectacle as thousands of animals jump into the water which takes a heavy toll. The great herds remain in the Mara until late October or early November when rain is again falling and then slowly at first but with increasing momentum they leave the Mara by various routes following the rains back south. The Mara's abundant herbivores make it a paradise for predators both large and small. When the first Europeans came to the Mara in the late 1800's, it had been inhabited by the Masai people (who came down from the North) for about 300 years. The Masai lived in harmony with the wildlife, for they do not, except in times of famine, hunt wild game for food. In the Maa language, the word "Mara" means "light and shade" referring to the patchy mosaic of tree lined luggas interspersing the vast open plains. Following the first great rinderpest outbreaks at the end of the 1800's, which decimated the herbivores, woody vegetation began to take hold dominating the terrain and at the turn of the century the Mara was known by the Masai people as "Osere" meaning "thick bush". However, the incursion of Elephants driven out by human occupation of their former vast ranges and now confined in this relatively small protected area, coupled with man induced fires and grazing by both wild and domestic herbivores has wrought a transformation from heavily wooded savannah and bushland to more open grasslands, benefiting the grazers above the browsing species. |
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Mt. Kenya is the highest mountain in the country, and the second highest in Africa after Kilimanjaro, standing at over 17,000 ft. 95 miles N.E. of Nairobi in Central Kenya almost on the equator. The area around it has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site encompassing a protected National Park that is 240 sq. miles in extent. The mountain is an extinct Volcano that last erupted between 2.6 and 3.1 million years ago, littering the surrounding lands with volcanic rock. Its lower slopes are dry upland forest giving way to a montane type forest at about 6,600 ft, dominated by juniper and podocarpus spp. with a belt of Bamboo at 8,000 ft. Beyond the Bamboo belt is upland forest consisting of smaller trees such as Hagenia and Hypericum covered with Usnea lichen receding into afro-alpine vegetation dominated by characteristic Giant rosette spp. The first European Explorer to sight Mt. Kenya was Johann Ludwig Krapf in 1849. The three highest peaks of Mt. Kenya have been named after Masai Chieftains - Batian (17,058 ft), Nelion l7,022 ft and Lenana (16,355 ft), and the mountain is particularly important to the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu tribes who occupy the surrounding country and believe that it is home to their God (Ngai), whose name in their language is Mwene Naga, or Owner of the Ostriches. To them the mountain resembled an ostrich with its snow-capped peaks, forested slopes and valleys and 12 small, but rapidly shrinking glaciers. The name of the mountain in Kikuyu is Kiri Nyago(today spelt as Kirinyaga) which means 'has ostriches' . The Masai people believe that their ancestors came down the mountain, called in their language 'Ol Donyo Keri' mountain of stripes of many colours. The lower montane forest between 5,900 and 8,200 ft. is heavily exploited for timber, much of the logging illegal, while the rich volcanic soils below 5,900 ft. are intensely farmed sustaining crops such as tea, coffee, beans, maize, bananas, potatoes and vegetables on the wetter southern slopes. The northern slopes are dryer, where there is largescale farming of wheat and barley on lands still owned by White Kenyans of European decent. A burgeoning human population, all agriculturally based, now occupies the ancient migration routes that remain to this day imprinted in the genetic memory of the Mt. Kenya population of elephants, resulting in a lot of human/wildlife conflict in the areas of cultivation. Whenever they leave the mountain for distant destinations further afield the elephants cannot but help to find themselves in trouble, and usually streak rapidly under cover of darkness to avoid being killed as 'problem animals' It was here that our latest little orphaned, named 'Kenia' was found alone early one morning and was rescued as an orphan. |
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Amboseli National Park is world famous for its scenic beauty with towering Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, but also for its largely undisturbed elephant population, the only elephant population on the entire African continent that has not suffered massive ivory poaching, and whose family structure is still largely intact. Numbering just over 1,000, this population has provided the baseline for elephant research for the past 28 years, in a detailed study where every individual is known and its life documented by resident Scientists who monitor their lives on a daily basis. Cynthia Moss has studied the female units and Dr. Joyce Poole the bulls and elephant communication and much of what is known about the nature of elephants today is a result of this research. The National Park and abutting Game Reserve embody five main wildlife habitats, plus a generally dry lake bed known as Amboseli from which the Park takes its name. There are open plains; stands of yellow-barked acacia woodland and doum palm groves, swamps and marshes fed from the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, rocky lava strewn thornbush country, and at the western end of the Reserve, the massif Oldoinyo Orok rising to over 8,300 ft which is still for the most part zoologically largely unexplored. Everywhere, the landscape is dominated by snow-capped Kilimanjaro immediately to the south which at 19,340 ft is Africa's highest mountain and a fitting backdrop to this important wild region where the pastoral Masai people and their cattle have coexisted in harmony with most wild creatures for many a century, killing only the lions in cultural rituals, but more recently the rhinos for the price of the horn. Protest spearing of some elephants has also occurred in recent times due to revenue sharing disputes. |
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The Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers over 8,000 - the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this Park. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but Tsavo is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all in perpetuity. The Tsavo National Park is divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Railway. Most of the Park is occupied by ancient gneisses and schists probably more than 600 million years old, in places worn down by weathering to an almost plain-like surface sometimes covered by more recent superficial deposits, although they as the Ngulia and Ndi group of hills in Tsavo West. Millions of years after the formation of the gneisses (in fact, geologically speaking, just yesterday), volcanic eruptions gave rise to two of the Park's most distinctive and scenic features, the Chyulu Hills in the north west and the Yatta Plateau along the Eastern side of the Athi River. The Yatta stretches for about 170 miles rising near Thika beyond Nairobi and ending at a point 20 miles Eastern Park boundary. Opinions differ as to whether this plateau is the result of a flow that filled a long valley of which the sides have subsequently been eroded whilst others surmise that it is the result of the welling up of lava along a series of cracks in the earth's surface on the line indicated by the plateau. The Chuyulu hills consist of a series of recent volcanic cones, some only a few hundred years old, many of which are comprised of volcanic ash, with lava flows that extend down to lower ground in the Mtito Andei Valley and at the famous Mzima Springs, the main source of Mombasa's water supply. The Chuylu Hills, covered in a beautiful mist forest, (and one of the only forests in the making) act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rain that falls on them which finds its way underneath the lava, emerging as crystal clear springs such as Mzima. Shitani ("Devil" in Swahili) is a volcano that stands about halfway up the southern end of the Chyulu range and here there are three craters resulting from movements of the centre of the volcano during eruptions. Basalt lava flows, piles of lava splashes thrown up by lava fountains, surrounding ash fields dotted with volcanic bombs and at the top, encrustations of sulphur deposited during the dying stages of the eruptions, are all there opposite very ancient rocky outjuttings, visible from just one standing position. The Five Sisters Hills near Mzima Springs, like the Chyulus, are also young volcanic cones. Its interesting and varied geology, its interesting history, its great herds of elephant and buffalo, its unique bush lions and rich biodiversity in fauna, flora and insect life make the Tsavo National Park one of the most unique and important National Parks in Kenya and certainly in the world. Here, nothing is contrived, and wild animals have the space they need in a pristine wilderness setting to enjoy the birth-right of all animals, both wild and domesticated - a quality of life. |
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The Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers over 8,000 - the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this Park. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but Tsavo is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all in perpetuity. The Tsavo National Park is divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Railway. Most of the Park is occupied by ancient gneisses and schists probably more than 600 million years old, in places worn down by weathering to an almost plain-like surface sometimes covered by more recent superficial deposits, although they as the Ngulia and Ndi group of hills in Tsavo West. Millions of years after the formation of the gneisses (in fact, geologically speaking, just yesterday), volcanic eruptions gave rise to two of the Park's most distinctive and scenic features, the Chyulu Hills in the north west and the Yatta Plateau along the Eastern side of the Athi River. The Yatta stretches for about 170 miles rising near Thika beyond Nairobi and ending at a point 20 miles Eastern Park boundary. Opinions differ as to whether this plateau is the result of a flow that filled a long valley of which the sides have subsequently been eroded whilst others surmise that it is the result of the welling up of lava along a series of cracks in the earth's surface on the line indicated by the plateau. The Chuyulu hills consist of a series of recent volcanic cones, some only a few hundred years old, many of which are comprised of volcanic ash, with lava flows that extend down to lower ground in the Mtito Andei Valley and at the famous Mzima Springs, the main source of Mombasa's water supply. The Chuylu Hills, covered in a beautiful mist forest, (and one of the only forests in the making) act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rain that falls on them which finds its way underneath the lava, emerging as crystal clear springs such as Mzima. Shitani ("Devil" in Swahili) is a volcano that stands about halfway up the southern end of the Chyulu range and here there are three craters resulting from movements of the centre of the volcano during eruptions. Basalt lava flows, piles of lava splashes thrown up by lava fountains, surrounding ash fields dotted with volcanic bombs and at the top, encrustations of sulphur deposited during the dying stages of the eruptions, are all there opposite very ancient rocky outjuttings, visible from just one standing position. The Five Sisters Hills near Mzima Springs, like the Chyulus, are also young volcanic cones. Its interesting and varied geology, its interesting history, its great herds of elephant and buffalo, its unique bush lions and rich biodiversity in fauna, flora and insect life make the Tsavo National Park one of the most unique and important National Parks in Kenya and certainly in the world. Here, nothing is contrived, and wild animals have the space they need in a pristine wilderness setting to enjoy the birth-right of all animals, both wild and domesticated - a quality of life. |
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The Masai Mara and adjoining Loita plains form the northernmost part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, a l0,000 sq. mile area encompassing the annual movements of its migratory wildebeest. The Serengeti is in Tanzania and the Mara in Kenya. The Mara receives the highest annual rainfall (some 53 inches) with rain falling throughout the year peaking in December, January and April and today provides the dry season refuge for the great Serengeti grazing hordes since the grass here is still plentiful when the Serengeti plains have dried out. Prior to the 1960's only some Serengeti wildebeest spilled over into the Masai Mara in very dry years and most wildebeest found in the Mara belonged to the separate Loita population seasonally moving between the Loita plains in wet months and the lusher Mara during the dry months. The Serengeti wildebeest population peaked at about 1.3 million in the 1960's and 1970's and then began to utilise the Masai Mara as their dry season range. However, the commercial trade in "bushmeat" and an expanding human population is currently taking a very heavy toll of numbers, although the still vast assemblage of ungulates annually moving through the ecosystem remains the greatest wildlife spectacle on earth and is known as "the migration", attracting tourists from all over the world being the last remaining migration of large mammals on earth. When it is wet in the Serengeti the wildebeest herds congregate on the short grass plains of the South- eastern part of the ecosystem to give birth en masse with 80% of the females calving within a few weeks. Early in the dry season, they stream en masse through the longer grass plains and on to the Western Corridor and as their food supply diminishes, they move into the northern Serengeti woodlands spreading out but moving North in response to rainfall and forage, eventually arriving in the Mara in June or July. The "crossings" on the Mara river afford a thrilling spectacle as thousands of animals jump into the water which takes a heavy toll. The great herds remain in the Mara until late October or early November when rain is again falling and then slowly at first but with increasing momentum they leave the Mara by various routes following the rains back south. The Mara's abundant herbivores make it a paradise for predators both large and small. When the first Europeans came to the Mara in the late 1800's, it had been inhabited by the Masai people (who came down from the North) for about 300 years. The Masai lived in harmony with the wildlife, for they do not, except in times of famine, hunt wild game for food. In the Maa language, the word "Mara" means "light and shade" referring to the patchy mosaic of tree lined luggas interspersing the vast open plains. Following the first great rinderpest outbreaks at the end of the 1800's, which decimated the herbivores, woody vegetation began to take hold dominating the terrain and at the turn of the century the Mara was known by the Masai people as "Osere" meaning "thick bush". However, the incursion of Elephants driven out by human occupation of their former vast ranges and now confined in this relatively small protected area, coupled with man induced fires and grazing by both wild and domestic herbivores has wrought a transformation from heavily wooded savannah and bushland to more open grasslands, benefiting the grazers above the browsing species. |
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The Kimana Springs lie within the Amboseli ecosystem, some 260 miles South East of Nairobi, an integral part of the greater and very important Amboseli ecosystem. Amboseli National Park is all that remains today of the once 27,700 square km. Southern Game Reserve of Colonial times, “Amboseli” being the Maa word for “a dry open area”. The entire Amboseli ecosystem has been traditionally used by the Masai pastoral community to graze their livestock on a communal basis, sharing the water sources within, including the beautiful Kimana Springs (which feed into a large swamp), with the wildlife of the area. Recently however, the Masai landowners have leased the fertile land bordering the permanent water source of the Springs to agricultural non Masai migrants who have moved in to establish permanent agricultural fields within the Group Ranch’s important wetland area and especially around Kimana Springs. As a result there has been increasing human/wildlife conflict in the area, the elephants who have utilized the Springs and nearby swamplands over millennia particularly becoming the main target. According to the local press no less than 14 elephants have been killed during the first few months of 2008. Before the advent of the agricultural tribes, and the planting of onions, maize, bananas, vegetables and other crops, elephants and all the wildlife within this essentially arid part of the country traditionally utilized Kimana Springs as a vital and very important water source. It was from here that a 3 week old bull elephant calf was rescued and brought to our Nairobi Nursery on the 17th May 2008, named “Kimana”. |
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Today, the Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is cut by the main Nairobi - Mombasa road, which links the hinterland of Kenya to the Coast. But, there was a time when this giant Park belonged only to the elephants and other wild animals that inhabited this vast tract of semi-desert. Only the traditional elephant hunters of the Waliangulu tribe ventured into what is now known as the Tsavo National Park, the area being too arid for cultivation, and unsuitable for livestock due to the presence of the tsetse fly which carries trypanosomiasis, deadly to cattle, but to which wild animals are immune. Traditional elephant migration routes between Tsavo West National Park (lying west of the Nairobi/Mombasa railway) and Tsavo East (east of the railway) today are hazardous passages for Tsavo's elephant herds, since they have to pass through settlement and run the gauntlet of snaring and the hostility of agricultural small holdings of the Taita people. Irima is the name of hill situated in Tsavo East National Park, and this young calf was found abandoned in this area close to this hill, close to where Voi Safari Lodge is situated. The Lodge watering holes are a popular drinking spot for elephants in the dry seasons. |
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The Taita Hills Sanctuary was once part of private land known as Lualeni Ranch, originally owned by a Briton. However, when the original owner died, Hilton Hotels International purchased 28,000 acres as a tourist venue for their clientele, and later Pollmans. The Sanctuary lies South East of the Taita Hills, accessed off the road between Voi and the Kenya/Tanzanian border town of Taveta. Its Western boundary abuts Tsavo West National Park, its Northern Boundary privately owned ranchlands abutting Tsavo East National Park and its Southern Boundary, what is left of the original Lualeni Ranch, now occupied by tribesmen and their livestock. Hilton Hotels constructed two large tourist lodges within the Sanctuary, one, named Taita Hills Lodge and a second called Salt Lick Lodge. Taita Hills lodge is modelled on a German Fort, commemorating the fighting that took place in this part of the world during the First World War between the British, who were Colonizers of Kenya, and Germans, colonizers of what used to be Tanganyika, fighting under the command of the legendary General von Lettow Vorbeck who was never defeated. Some famous battles took place here, notably The Battle of Salaita Hill, which resulted in two Victoria Cross Medals for the British, the highest award for outstanding gallantry usually given posthumously. One such VC holder is buried in the War Cemetry in Voi. The second lodge within the Sanctuary is Salt Lick Lodge, comprised of a series of rondavels on stilts overlooking a swampy area of the Bura river which is a popular venue for wild animals, both large and small. Another tourist feature of the Sanctuary is the James Stewart River House, overlooking a series of beautiful pools on the upper reaches of the Bura river, and so named in honour of the famous actor, James Stewart, who starred in “A tale of Africa” funded by the Japanese and filmed in the late seventies and early eighties. This house serves as a barbecue venue for group functions and tourists staying at the two Hilton Lodges. At one time the wildlife within the Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary enjoyed tight security, but, unhappily, in recent times, the Sanctuary has been subjected to poaching and bush-meat poaching through the setting of wire snares. The elephants who move through the Sanctuary periodically on migration between Tsavo West and East are now very much at risk due to this rampant bush-meat trade and also due to the inevitable human/wildlife conflict brought about by the presence of a burgeoning human population on ancient traditional migration routes between the two Tsavos and neighbouring ranchlands. |
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Maralal, is the official administrative Headquarters of Samburuland and lies at the base of the forested Karisia Hills. These rise up from the Larogi Plateau northwest of the Samburu National Reserve, overlooking open plains and scattered bush country which becomes persistently more arid as one heads North to Baragoi and South Horr into the arid lava desert wastes of Lake Turkana itself. Classified as the Gateway to the inhospitable north, elephant herds still migrate between the Karisia Hills and the Mathews Range. Our orphan "Suguta" was rescued at a place called Logarate near Maralal, her mother killed by poachers. she was rescued by Samburu tribesmen and kept at the Suguta Mar Mar KWS ranger station overnight before being flown to us, severely dehydrated having been without her mother for days. |
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Mutara Ranch is situated close to The Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy a 90,000 acre wildlife reserve within Laikipia district, both situated between the foothills of the Aberdares and the magnificent snowcapped Mount Kenya. The nearest town is Nanyuki. At one time the rolling savannahs of this area which was then owned by the Delamere family, equalled the Masai Mara in its abundance of wildlife, with grazing multitudes present in countless thousands. It was also where the late David Sheldrick, whose father built the first “Treetops” on his farm, spent most of his childhood years. Today, the Ranches in this area still harbour a wide range of indigenous wildlife, including elephants, though in greatly reduced numbers. Ol Pejeta was a cattle ranch, but in 2004, it was purchased by Fauna and Flora International, a UK based Conservation Organization and its focus changed to wildlife conservation. The Sweetwaters Game Sanctuary will now be extended to encompass the entire ranching area, thereby creating the Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy with the aim of generating profit from wildlife tourism and complementary activities for reinvestment into community development within the local area. Cattle ranching will remain one of Ol Pejeta’s activities, as is the case with Mutara Ranch, but wildlife based conservation and tourism will henceforth become Ol Pejita's main focus. |
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These Reserves lie on either side of the main highway about halfway between the Western Kenyan town of Kitale, which is a lush arable area, and Lodwar in the harsh lava deserts of Lake Turkana in the arid North just next door. Neither Reserve is well endowed with wildlife since the tribes that inhabit this area, namely the Pokot and Turkana live life on the edge under extremely harsh conditions, and exist on whatever they can find. Nasalot Reserve is dominated by a rugged mountain of the same name which overlooks the Turkwel Gorge, the site of an Aid sponsored hydroelectric Power Scheme that has proved something of a White Elephant and never really become functional. The birth place of our orphaned elephant named “Turkwel” is the South Turkana National Reserve which is l,091 sq. kms in extent. It was established in l979 along with the Nasalot National Reserve (92 sq. kms) in an attempt to try and preserve the few wild animals still existing in this remote and extremely arid and harsh environment. The Reserve still harbours a dwindling population of elephants, plus low numbers of a few other species such as lesser kudu, eland, and buffalo which are also under severe pressure. That anything still manages to survive there is a miracle especially since illegal firearms have flooded into the area and have became so easily procurable that every Pokot or Turkana tribesman carries an AK 47, and uses it liberally during cattle rustling raids and tribal conflict. This has always been a way of life in this remote region where the long arm of the law does not reach. Since the arrival of migrant Chinese workers who deal in illegal ivory, and have pushed the price to a poacher of an ivory tusk five times and more, elephant poaching has become an additional threat to the few surviving elephants of the region. Our orphaned elephant named “Turkwel” is, indeed, a very lucky little elephant who was retrieved by heroically brave Rangers escorted by armed guards as gunshots rang out all around as the aircraft was waiting at the airstrip to collect her and bring her to safety. |
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Amboseli National Park is world famous for its scenic beauty with towering Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, but also for its largely undisturbed elephant population, the only elephant population on the entire African continent that has not suffered massive ivory poaching, and whose family structure is still largely intact. Numbering just over 1,000, this population has provided the baseline for elephant research for the past 28 years, in a detailed study where every individual is known and its life documented by resident Scientists who monitor their lives on a daily basis. Cynthia Moss has studied the female units and Dr. Joyce Poole the bulls and elephant communication and much of what is known about the nature of elephants today is a result of this research. The National Park and abutting Game Reserve embody five main wildlife habitats, plus a generally dry lake bed known as Amboseli from which the Park takes its name. There are open plains; stands of yellow-barked acacia woodland and doum palm groves, swamps and marshes fed from the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, rocky lava strewn thornbush country, and at the western end of the Reserve, the massif Oldoinyo Orok rising to over 8,300 ft which is still for the most part zoologically largely unexplored. Everywhere, the landscape is dominated by snow-capped Kilimanjaro immediately to the south which at 19,340 ft is Africa's highest mountain and a fitting backdrop to this important wild region where the pastoral Masai people and their cattle have coexisted in harmony with most wild creatures for many a century, killing only the lions in cultural rituals, but more recently the rhinos for the price of the horn. Protest spearing of some elephants has also occurred in recent times due to revenue sharing disputes. |
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The Tsavo National Park encompasses 8,000 sq. miles (20,812 sq. kms) and as such is one of the largest National Parks in the world, the same size as Israel, Wales or Michigan State. It was gazetted as a National Park in l949, since it was largely uninhabited, being so arid, useless for arable purposes and infested with tsetse fly that transmit trypanosomiasis to domestic livestock, and therefore unsuitable for ranching. It was “no-man’s land” traversed only by elephant poachers and it was home to a large population of both Black rhino and elephants. Moreover, it was the only large chunk of country that had the size to afford elephants the space they need for a quality of life in wild terms. For administrative purposes Tsavo was divided into two sections; everything East of the main Nairobi Mombasa railway line designated as Tsavo East National Park, and the country lying west of the railway line, Tsavo West National Park. Only two permanent rivers run through this large tract of land, the Tsavo river that has its source at the foothills of Kilimanjaro, (Africa’s highest mountain), boosted by the waters of the Mzima Springs and the Athi river that rises in the foothills of the Aberdare Mountains in the highlands of Kenya, bypasses Nairobi city and continues on down into Tsavo East National Park there to be joined by the Tsavo to become the Galana, spilling into the Indian Ocean near the coastal town of Malindi as the Sabaki. This river enjoys three different tribal names, and is the lifeblood of the arid Eastern section of the Park. There was a time when the Tsavo ecosystem (l6,000 square miles in extent i.e.twice the size of the Park) held a population of 45,000 elephants and 20,000 Black Rhino. Today, the Ivory and Rhino Horn driven by the Far East have reduced the elephant population to 12,000 and the Black Rhino almost to extinction. Just l00 remain in Tsavo with just another 400 in protected land throughout Kenya. Tsavo West enjoys a higher rainfall that Tsavo East, as well as spectacular scenery and a more diverse habitat than its Eastern neighbor which is characterized by flat terrain. Temperatures range from 20 – 30 C and rainfall from 200 mm – 700 mm per annum. However despite enjoying a higher rainfall than Tsavo East, Tsavo East still has the edge on the West wildlife-wise. It remains home to most of the Tsavo elephant herds and has a greater diversity of species present in greater numbers than the Western sector. Nevertheless, the habitat of Tsavo West is stunning, comprised of open plains alternating with Acacia and Commiphora scrubland interspersed by huge Baobabs, (said to live a thousand years); rocky ridges and unexpected outcroppings of ancient basement rock alongside recent lava flows and ash cones, sizeable hills of ancient origin that have endemics and are covered in dense vegetation, extensive palm thickets and stretches of beautiful riverine species. There are several crystal clear springs that emerge from the lava – Mzima being the most famous. Water filtered through the porous ash of the nearby Chyulu hills reaches basement rock to flow underground and gush forth from lava ridges. The springs create an oasis in the heart of an arid landscape and are populated by hippos, crocodiles, turtles, and fish, easily viewed because of the clarity of the water. Here a rich array of bird and wildlife congregate, and the Springs supply water taken from underground for the Port town of Mombasa, 160 miles away. Tsavo West also has one of Kenya’s two electrically fenced rhino Sanctuaries, the other being Lake Nakuru National Park. The youngest cones of the beautiful Chyulu hills were formed only some 500 years ago, covered in a rare emergent forest which traps some 3 metres of mist vapour each year, which feeds Mzima and the other springs of the area. Sadly, this beautiful forest, already home to endemic species, is currently under threat from uncontrolled logging and charcoal burning. The word “Mzima” means life and here some 220 million litres of water a day flowing from the lava sustain a complex pyramid of life, hippo dung nutrients enriching a rich aquatic ecosystem. The waters of Mzima eventually find their way into the Tsavo river, boosting its flow through the entire Tsavo National Park and ensuring that the Galana in Tsavo East remains permanent and the lifeblood of a very arid place. |
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The influence of the Il Ngwezi Group Ranch has stretched further north and resulted in a number of remarkable partnerships between the local Samburu tribesmen and the Northern Rangelands Trust. The Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust was formed to nurture a 75,000 acre conservation area folding around the Mathews Range mountains, overseen by a trained team of local Scouts. A network of tracks. radio communication coverage and regular patrolling and a beautiful lodge are all part of the successful conservancy now. A fundamental attitude change has also accompanied the wildlife resurgence in the area, and all wildlife numbers have increased substantially including that of elephants. |
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The Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary, is a 35 acre electrically fenced enclave within Tsavo West National Park where the remaining rhinos within the Tsavo ecosystem and others moved from human settled areas, are kept under tight security having been brought together for breeding purposes in an attempt to retrieve the species from annihilation through rampant poaching for their horn. Rhino horn is greatly prized in the Near and Middle East for its supposed medicinal properties, and the mistaken belief that it is an aphrodisiac. In fact, it is nothing more than Keratin, identical to a finger nail, but the lengthy mating procedure of Rhinos, plus the phallic shape of the horn, has planted in the minds of the Chinese and others its supposed magical properties. When the Tsavo National Park first came into being in l949 it was the bastion of Black Rhinos, home to 8,000 out of a total Kenya-wide population of some 20,000. However, by the early nineties, rampant and uncontrolled poaching reduced Kenya’s Black Rhino population almost to the brink of extinction and it was during the mid eighties, when Bill Woodley was Warden of Tsavo West National Park, that 24 square miles just below the Ngulia escarpment was first electrically fenced to house the survivors. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust provided the funding for this initial initiative, and since then the Sanctuary has had to be extended to its current 35 acres. It has also been found essential to move out several hundred elephants that were also fenced in and were in competition with the rhinos for the available food resource. When the rhino population within the Sanctuary reached 70 plus, some of the rhinos were also moved out to free range, since a core population was secured within the Sanctuary |
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The Tsavo National Park encompasses 8,000 sq. miles (20,812 sq. kms) and as such is one of the largest National Parks in the world, the same size as Israel, Wales or Michigan State. It was gazetted as a National Park in l949, since it was largely uninhabited, being so arid, useless for arable purposes and infested with tsetse fly that transmit trypanosomiasis to domestic livestock, and therefore unsuitable for ranching. It was “no-man’s land” traversed only by elephant poachers and it was home to a large population of both Black rhino and elephants. Moreover, it was the only large chunk of country that had the size to afford elephants the space they need for a quality of life in wild terms. For administrative purposes Tsavo was divided into two sections; everything East of the main Nairobi Mombasa railway line designated as Tsavo East National Park, and the country lying west of the railway line, Tsavo West National Park. Only two permanent rivers run through this large tract of land, the Tsavo river that has its source at the foothills of Kilimanjaro, (Africa’s highest mountain), boosted by the waters of the Mzima Springs and the Athi river that rises in the foothills of the Aberdare Mountains in the highlands of Kenya, bypasses Nairobi city and continues on down into Tsavo East National Park there to be joined by the Tsavo to become the Galana, spilling into the Indian Ocean near the coastal town of Malindi as the Sabaki. This river enjoys three different tribal names, and is the lifeblood of the arid Eastern section of the Park. There was a time when the Tsavo ecosystem (l6,000 square miles in extent i.e.twice the size of the Park) held a population of 45,000 elephants and 20,000 Black Rhino. Today, the Ivory and Rhino Horn driven by the Far East have reduced the elephant population to 12,000 and the Black Rhino almost to extinction. Just l00 remain in Tsavo with just another 400 in protected land throughout Kenya. Tsavo West enjoys a higher rainfall that Tsavo East, as well as spectacular scenery and a more diverse habitat than its Eastern neighbor which is characterized by flat terrain. Temperatures range from 20 – 30 C and rainfall from 200 mm – 700 mm per annum. However despite enjoying a higher rainfall than Tsavo East, Tsavo East still has the edge on the West wildlife-wise. It remains home to most of the Tsavo elephant herds and has a greater diversity of species present in greater numbers than the Western sector. Nevertheless, the habitat of Tsavo West is stunning, comprised of open plains alternating with Acacia and Commiphora scrubland interspersed by huge Baobabs, (said to live a thousand years); rocky ridges and unexpected outcroppings of ancient basement rock alongside recent lava flows and ash cones, sizeable hills of ancient origin that have endemics and are covered in dense vegetation, extensive palm thickets and stretches of beautiful riverine species. There are several crystal clear springs that emerge from the lava – Mzima being the most famous. Water filtered through the porous ash of the nearby Chyulu hills reaches basement rock to flow underground and gush forth from lava ridges. The springs create an oasis in the heart of an arid landscape and are populated by hippos, crocodiles, turtles, and fish, easily viewed because of the clarity of the water. Here a rich array of bird and wildlife congregate, and the Springs supply water taken from underground for the Port town of Mombasa, 160 miles away. Tsavo West also has one of Kenya’s two electrically fenced rhino Sanctuaries, the other being Lake Nakuru National Park. The youngest cones of the beautiful Chyulu hills were formed only some 500 years ago, covered in a rare emergent forest which traps some 3 metres of mist vapour each year, which feeds Mzima and the other springs of the area. Sadly, this beautiful forest, already home to endemic species, is currently under threat from uncontrolled logging and charcoal burning. The word “Mzima” means life and here some 220 million litres of water a day flowing from the lava sustain a complex pyramid of life, hippo dung nutrients enriching a rich aquatic ecosystem. The waters of Mzima eventually find their way into the Tsavo river, boosting its flow through the entire Tsavo National Park and ensuring that the Galana in Tsavo East remains permanent and the lifeblood of a very arid place. |
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Amboseli National Park is world famous for its scenic beauty with towering Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, but also for its largely undisturbed elephant population, the only elephant population on the entire African continent that has not suffered massive ivory poaching, and whose family structure is still largely intact. Numbering just over 1,000, this population has provided the baseline for elephant research for the past 28 years, in a detailed study where every individual is known and its life documented by resident Scientists who monitor their lives on a daily basis. Cynthia Moss has studied the female units and Dr. Joyce Poole the bulls and elephant communication and much of what is known about the nature of elephants today is a result of this research. The National Park and abutting Game Reserve embody five main wildlife habitats, plus a generally dry lake bed known as Amboseli from which the Park takes its name. There are open plains; stands of yellow-barked acacia woodland and doum palm groves, swamps and marshes fed from the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, rocky lava strewn thornbush country, and at the western end of the Reserve, the massif Oldoinyo Orok rising to over 8,300 ft which is still for the most part zoologically largely unexplored. Everywhere, the landscape is dominated by snow-capped Kilimanjaro immediately to the south which at 19,340 ft is Africa's highest mountain and a fitting backdrop to this important wild region where the pastoral Masai people and their cattle have coexisted in harmony with most wild creatures for many a century, killing only the lions in cultural rituals, but more recently the rhinos for the price of the horn. Protest spearing of some elephants has also occurred in recent times due to revenue sharing disputes. |
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Amboseli National Park is world famous for its scenic beauty with towering Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, but also for its largely undisturbed elephant population, the only elephant population on the entire African continent that has not suffered massive ivory poaching, and whose family structure is still largely intact. Numbering just over 1,000, this population has provided the baseline for elephant research for the past 28 years, in a detailed study where every individual is known and its life documented by resident Scientists who monitor their lives on a daily basis. Cynthia Moss has studied the female units and Dr. Joyce Poole the bulls and elephant communication and much of what is known about the nature of elephants today is a result of this research. The National Park and abutting Game Reserve embody five main wildlife habitats, plus a generally dry lake bed known as Amboseli from which the Park takes its name. There are open plains; stands of yellow-barked acacia woodland and doum palm groves, swamps and marshes fed from the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, rocky lava strewn thornbush country, and at the western end of the Reserve, the massif Oldoinyo Orok rising to over 8,300 ft which is still for the most part zoologically largely unexplored. Everywhere, the landscape is dominated by snow-capped Kilimanjaro immediately to the south which at 19,340 ft is Africa's highest mountain and a fitting backdrop to this important wild region where the pastoral Masai people and their cattle have coexisted in harmony with most wild creatures for many a century, killing only the lions in cultural rituals, but more recently the rhinos for the price of the horn. Protest spearing of some elephants has also occurred in recent times due to revenue sharing disputes. |
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In Laikipia, the wild semi-arid land North of Mount Kenya, the community conservation projects of Il Ngwezi, Tassia, and Namunyak, initiated by the Craig family of Lewa Downs Private Ranch as a buffer to protect the boundaries of their land, has, for the past four years, quietly revolutionised attitudes in these drought-prone rangelands inhabited by the nomadic Samburu people, who are an off-shoot of the Masai tribe. The group ranch of Il Ngwezi encompasses an area of l6,500 acres. A small, but beautiful 12 bed Lodge situated on the side of a hill, comprised of simple but tasteful tree-houses overlooking a waterhole and valley and run entirely by the local community, has not only captured the hearts of hundreds of tourists, but has helped to prove that wildlife conservation can be more profitable to local people than cattle herding. Opened in December 1996, and built with funding from USAID, the Il Ngwezi Group Ranch Lodge has been the model that has been followed by other conservation movements desperately searching for alternatives to livestock. Today, the lodge and security operations employ many local tribesmen, who have also established a cultural village where local crafts are on offer to the tourists. Such has been the success of the project that from a livestock ravaged over grazed rangeland, the Il Ngwezi Group ranch is now being marketed as an attractive wildlife destination, where the elephant herds are protected and welcome and where close wildlife encounters are available through activities not normally permitted in the National Parks. And here, the local tribesmen rescued our orphan "Tassia" who was found wandering all by himself in the Olchurai area near the Tassia Lodge. Grazing by cattle has been drastically reduced within the conservation area, prohibited for l Km. around the Lodge itself where the ranch's last intact grasslands attract an increasing number of wild animals. The Il Ngwezi community has also launched a project to reseed local areas that have historically been overgrazed and this is another ground-breaking initiative with sweeping benefits. Recently however, due to an ongoing drought and an increase in the demand for Ivory, poaching has taken a turn for the worse all over Kenya, with more orphans coming in as a result. |
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The Meibai Community Wildlife Conservancy falls under The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) with 15 community conservancies under it’s umbrella. NRT has member conservancies spread out strategically along critical pathways for the wildlife. By involving the communities, talking, sharing experiences and lobbying, there is a growing momentum for a conservation-driven future for northern Kenya that is already reaping abundant results for this much-forgotten northern part of the country. The NRT alone covers almost one million hectares of community areas. The Northern Rangelands Turst helps to provide a forum for exchanging ideas, experiences, acting as a technical advisor and implementing organization for its members. The Meibai Community conservancy is a recent addition, situation close to Wamba towards Maralal north of Samburu National Reserve. The Samburu National Reserve lies 325 kms North of Nairobi in the hot fringes of the arid Northern Frontier region of Kenya within land occupied by the colourful pastoral Samburu tribe, which is an off-shoot of the Masai. It is a popular tourist venue, harbouring a number of wildlife species found only on the equator such as Grevy Zebra, Beisa Oryx and Reticulated Giraffe. Scenically and faunally dramatic, it is a very popular tourist destination, transected by wide swathes of the sluggish Uaso Nyiro River which runs the length of the Reserve and is fringed with giant acacia elatiors, figs and doum palms that provide both shade and sustenance for the wildlife. The Uaso Nyiro river rises hundreds of kms. to the west in the foothills of the Aberdare range and vanishes beyond into the recesses of the Lorian swamp (now threatening to dry due to illegal logging in the river’s catchment area exacerbated by the affects of global warming in an area that is hot at the best of times, and now even hotter than usual. Elephants roam the gaunt hills which punctuate the scrubland of the Samburu tribal lands. The elephants of the region lead a very harsh existence in this arid semi-desert region, threatened by the escalation of poaching in 2009 which has coincided with the advent of Chinese road construction workers in the area. The failure of the rains in late 2008 and early 2009 has, and is, taking a very heavy toll of milk dependent young calves (elephant calves being milk dependent for the first 3 years of life). It is from the community lands that Meibai originates. Establishing the necessary infrastructure for the development and management of the core community conservation in this region will enhance the economic well being of the community and lessen its dependency on cattle, overcoming the challenges of desertification through overgrazing by surrounding communities by encouraging eco-friendly wildlife based tourism. |
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The Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers over 11,000 - the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this Park. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but Tsavo is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all in perpetuity. The Tsavo National Park is divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Railway. Most of the Park is occupied by ancient gneisses and schists probably more than 600 million years old, in places worn down by weathering to an almost plain-like surface sometimes covered by more recent superficial deposits, although they as the Ngulia and Ndi group of hills in Tsavo West. Millions of years after the formation of the gneisses (in fact, geologically speaking, just yesterday), volcanic eruptions gave rise to two of the Park's most distinctive and scenic features, the Chyulu Hills in the north west and the Yatta Plateau along the Eastern side of the Athi River. The Yatta stretches for about 170 miles rising near Thika beyond Nairobi and ending at a point 20 miles Eastern Park boundary. Opinions differ as to whether this plateau is the result of a flow that filled a long valley of which the sides have subsequently been eroded whilst others surmise that it is the result of the welling up of lava along a series of cracks in the earth's surface on the line indicated by the plateau. The Chuyulu hills consist of a series of recent volcanic cones, some only a few hundred years old, many of which are comprised of volcanic ash, with lava flows that extend down to lower ground in the Mtito Andei Valley and at the famous Mzima Springs, the main source of Mombasa's water supply. The Chuylu Hills, covered in a beautiful mist forest, (and one of the only forests in the making) act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rain that falls on them which finds its way underneath the lava, emerging as crystal clear springs such as Mzima. Shitani ("Devil" in Swahili) is a volcano that stands about halfway up the southern end of the Chyulu range and here there are three craters resulting from movements of the centre of the volcano during eruptions. Basalt lava flows, piles of lava splashes thrown up by lava fountains, surrounding ash fields dotted with volcanic bombs and at the top, encrustations of sulphur deposited during the dying stages of the eruptions, are all there opposite very ancient rocky outjuttings, visible from just one standing position. The Five Sisters Hills near Mzima Springs, like the Chyulus, are also young volcanic cones. Its interesting and varied geology, its interesting history, its great herds of elephant and buffalo, its unique bush lions and rich biodiversity in fauna, flora and insect life make the Tsavo National Park one of the most unique and important National Parks in Kenya and certainly in the world. Here, nothing is contrived, and wild animals have the space they need in a pristine wilderness setting to enjoy the birth-right of all animals, both wild and domesticated - a quality of life. |
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The Chyulu range of hills, of recent origin, overlooking the 3,000 sq. miles of Tsavo West National Park are about 50 miles long flanked by lava fields some 5 miles wide. The hills encompass some 600 volcanic cones, with lava flows emenating from them. Some of these cones are very recent in origin, one in particular known as “Shaitani” (the Swahili word for “devil), which is visible from the Kilaguni Lodge, and which is still unvegetated. It has 8 small craters, a sulphur encrustation near the summit and a lava flow that extends 5 miles from the cone. Local folklore tells of glowing clouds and strange sounds emitted by this cone, indicating that the last eruption was probably only about 100 years ago. At one point in the Park visitors can see this young lava flow, turn round and also see basement hills that are 2 billion years old, formed when the earth itself was young. The entire Chyulu range, believed to be only about 600 years old, is comprised of the ash from the volcanic activity that created them The hills are clothed in a beautiful emerging mist forest, one of the few areas in the world where a forest is actually in the making. Being comprised of ash there is no surface water on the hills themselves, but the heavy morning dews and mists attracted by the forest filter through the ash to the basement complex beneath to appear as crystal clear springs both within and outside the Park. One such spring is the famous Mzima , which yields the bulk of water for the coastal town of Mombasa as well as being Tsavo West’s main tourist attraction and a breeding ground for hippo and other aquatic species. Unfortunately, despite the area having been recently declared a National Park, illegal settlement and the illegal logging of hardwood trees threaten the Chyulus emerging forest, already home to some endemic species. The illegal harvesting of the two species of sandalwood trees (Osyris lanciolata and Osyrus compressa) is huge business in Kenya for the wood fetches K. Shs. 80/- per kilo and has a ready market in India and Norway where it is used in the manufacture of soaps, perfumes and other beauty products. The illegal snaring of animals for the bushmeat trade and poaching is also taking a heavy toll of the wildlife that dwells both within the forest and in the community area bordering the hills, where the animals have to come to drink. The Trust funds and manages a fulltime De-Snaring anti-poaching presence in the area in an attempt to combat both these evils. |
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The Kalama Community Wildlife Conservancy was started 2002 and lies in an area of 95,000 hectares of the Girgir Group Ranch adjacent to the Samburu National Reserve. The Kalama community, comprised of some 2,000 people, has long coexisted with the Samburu National Reserve, whose County Council has historically shared its revenue with Kalama as compensation for their contribution as custodians of the wildlife in an area adjacent to the Reserve proper, and for losses incurred by the community as a result of the migratory movements of the wildlife of the area. Kalama’s core conservation area is 3,150 hectares in extent along a crucial migratory corridor for wildlife, and particularly elephants, between the northern and southern conservation areas. The Samburu National Reseve lies 325 kms North of Nairobi in the hot fringes of the arid Northern Frontier region of Kenya within land occupied by the colourful pastoral Samburu tribe, which is an off-shoot of the Masai. It is a popular tourist venue, harbouring a number of wildlife species found only on the equator such as Grevy Zebra, Beisa Oryx and Reticulated Giraffe. Scenically and faunally dramatic, it is a very popular tourist destination, transected by wide swathes of the sluggish Uaso Nyiro River which runs the length of the Reserve and is fringed with giant acacia elatiors, figs and doum palms that provide both shade and sustenance for the wildlife. The Uaso Nyiro river rises hundreds of kms. to the west in the foothills of the Aberdare range and vanishes beyond into the recesses of the Lorian swamp (now threatening to dry due to illegal logging in the river’s catchment area exacerbated by the affects of global warming in an area that is hot at the best of times, and now even hotter than usual. Elephants roam the gaunt hills which punctuate the scrubland of the Samburu tribal lands, and who have to concentrate at the river to drink and bathe, where they are protected and feel less threatened, presenting a popular and pleasing tourist spectacle for the many tourists that flock the plethora of lodges and camps along the river’s course. The elephants of the region lead a very harsh existence in this arid semi-desert region, threatened by the escalation of poaching in 2009 which has coincided with the advent of Chinese road construction workers in the area. The failure of the rains in late 2008 and early 2009 has, and is, taking a very heavy toll of milk dependent young calves (elephant calves being milk dependent for the first 3 years of life). It is from here that our orphaned elephant “Kalama” originates, having fallen down a well and been rescued by ele friendly Kalama Conservancy personnel. Establishing the necessary infrastructure for the development and management of the core conservation area of Kalama Conservancy will enhance the economic well being of the community and lessen its dependency on cattle, overcoming the challenges of desertification through overgrazing by surrounding communities by encouraging eco-friendly wildlife based tourism. |
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Two very prominent landmarks in the far Northern Frontier of Kenya are the Mathews range of Hills, and the Ndoto range of hills, mountain ranges and important water catchments for the arid desert country that surrounds them. Between these two mountain ranges lies the largest and most beautiful sand lugga of the North, fringed by tall shady Acacias, Tamarinds and wild Figs and an important tourist destination for those who like walking with, or riding camels. The lugga is dry for the greater part of the year, and is an important watering place for the pastoral Samburu people and their livestock, who dig deep wells in the sand to access ground reserves, hauling the water up in buckets and pouring it into shallow drinking troughs for their livestock. The elephants also rely on the ground water of the Milgis lugga, and as they crowd around such places that have already been excavated by humans, sometimes the sandy sides cave in under their great weight, and a baby finds itself tumbling down to the bottom, trapped beyond trunk reach of the adults who are unable to extract it. Furthermore, harassed by humans during their long distance travels during which they have to cross densely populated areas, the elephants of this region are extremely fearful of humans, and are in a hurry to quench their thirst and move on, usually under cover of darkness, unable to risk tarrying too long in order to remain with one of their number for fear of jeopardizing the survival of the entire herd. The emotional heartache of an elephant family who endures this kind of separation from a loved baby can only be imagined, but the elephants of the North are beleaguered on a daily basis. Such was the fate of little Nchan, who was one baby fortunate enough to be pulled free by tribesmen and the Milgis Trust Scouts. The Milgis Trust was set up to provide security to the wildlife and currently supports 12 ranges employed from the local Samburu community within the region. The rangers working close to the tribal Chiefs and Elders and in conjunction with the Kenya Wildlife Server and other community conservancies monitor and actively report any incidences of dustruction and poaching. |
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The Chyulu range of hills, of recent origin, overlooking the 3,000 sq. miles of Tsavo West National Park are about 50 miles long flanked by lava fields some 5 miles wide. The hills encompass some 600 volcanic cones, with lava flows emenating from them. Some of these cones are very recent in origin, one in particular known as “Shaitani” (the Swahili word for “devil), which is visible from the Kilaguni Lodge, and which is still unvegetated. It has 8 small craters, a sulphur encrustation near the summit and a lava flow that extends 5 miles from the cone. Local folklore tells of glowing clouds and strange sounds emitted by this cone, indicating that the last eruption was probably only about 100 years ago. At one point in the Park visitors can see this young lava flow, turn round and also see basement hills that are 2 billion years old, formed when the earth itself was young. The entire Chyulu range, believed to be only about 600 years old, is comprised of the ash from the volcanic activity that created them The hills are clothed in a beautiful emerging mist forest, one of the few areas in the world where a forest is actually in the making. Being comprised of ash there is no surface water on the hills themselves, but the heavy morning dews and mists attracted by the forest filter through the ash to the basement complex beneath to appear as crystal clear springs both within and outside the Park. One such spring is the famous Mzima , which yields the bulk of water for the coastal town of Mombasa as well as being Tsavo West’s main tourist attraction and a breeding ground for hippo and other aquatic species. |
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The Tsavo Conservation area, encompassing an area of 60,000 square kilometres includes 3 National Parks, 2 Game Reserves, a National Reserve, ranches and unassigned community lands. Mugeno Ranch is one of the Ranches situated between the southern sector of Tsavo West and East National Parks. While predominently used for livestock, these ranches are often used as ancient migratory routes for the elephants travelling between the two National Parks. The Tsavo Conservation Area is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers about 10,000 - 12,000, the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this area. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo and the conservation area is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but the Tsavo region is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all we hope in perpetuity. |
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The Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area of 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is the main stronghold for wildlife in Kenya, and especially for Kenya's elephant population, which in Tsavo now numbers over 8,000 - the largest single population left in the entire country. Although wild animals are distributed throughout other parts of the country, the Tsavo National Park is the only large area where they are accorded total protection and with its varied topography and differing habitats, it harbours a greater biodiversity of wildlife than any other Park in the world, since it is here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna just happen to occur. The birdlife of Tsavo is unparalleled and all the spectrum of large mammals - elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion, leopard and even the endangered wild dogs are well represented in this Park. The wise old Leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt, understandable alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their domain by Western man; the Slave Caravans that traversed what was then only known as the Taru Desert, following the Galana River from the Coast to the hinterland, with others camping at the historic Buchuma waterholes, with their cargoes of chained humans, ivory and skins; the passage of the early Explorers, people like Krapf and Rebbman, the first Europeans to sight the snows of both Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya; Lord Lugard for whom Lugards Falls is named, Joseph Thomson, the first white man to pass through Masailand and many others. Then came the building of the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria bringing the first survey parties, and later the construction teams, carving a trail through the elephants' hitherto untouched and unknown sanctuaries and watering places. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that hampered work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from bush barricades and tents, and devouring them within hearing of their comrades. They even feasted on some of their White Foremen who were snatched from rail trolleys and coaches. The lions of Tsavo still display some of the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised this region at the turn of the century, the lions had to be tough to survive and also cope with larger prey such as buffalo and no doubt it was this battle for survival that has made them as fierce as lions are traditionally expected to be. Tsavo is one of the last great wilderness bastions of the world, where Nature has ruled supreme since the dawn of time and where Elephant/Vegetation cycles and progressions have been allowed to proceed unhindered; where famous Naturalists such as David Sheldrick studied and understood the natural recycling role of elephants, that bring about the woodland to grassland cycles, then suffer a natural die-off (the myth of the Elephants' Graveyard) relieving the pressure on the vegetation and allowing the woodlands to gradually take hold again, enriched by the trees the elephants have planted in their dung. With these natural vegetational cycles, grazing species and browsing species proliferate or decline, depending upon whether grassland or bush dominate at the time, but Tsavo is large enough, and diverse enough, to provide sanctuary for all in perpetuity. The Tsavo National Park is divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Railway. Most of the Park is occupied by ancient gneisses and schists probably more than 600 million years old, in places worn down by weathering to an almost plain-like surface sometimes covered by more recent superficial deposits, although they as the Ngulia and Ndi group of hills in Tsavo West. Millions of years after the formation of the gneisses (in fact, geologically speaking, just yesterday), volcanic eruptions gave rise to two of the Park's most distinctive and scenic features, the Chyulu Hills in the north west and the Yatta Plateau along the Eastern side of the Athi River. The Yatta stretches for about 170 miles rising near Thika beyond Nairobi and ending at a point 20 miles Eastern Park boundary. Opinions differ as to whether this plateau is the result of a flow that filled a long valley of which the sides have subsequently been eroded whilst others surmise that it is the result of the welling up of lava along a series of cracks in the earth's surface on the line indicated by the plateau. The Chuyulu hills consist of a series of recent volcanic cones, some only a few hundred years old, many of which are comprised of volcanic ash, with lava flows that extend down to lower ground in the Mtito Andei Valley and at the famous Mzima Springs, the main source of Mombasa's water supply. The Chuylu Hills, covered in a beautiful mist forest, (and one of the only forests in the making) act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rain that falls on them which finds its way underneath the lava, emerging as crystal clear springs such as Mzima. Shitani ("Devil" in Swahili) is a volcano that stands about halfway up the southern end of the Chyulu range and here there are three craters resulting from movements of the centre of the volcano during eruptions. Basalt lava flows, piles of lava splashes thrown up by lava fountains, surrounding ash fields dotted with volcanic bombs and at the top, encrustations of sulphur deposited during the dying stages of the eruptions, are all there opposite very ancient rocky outjuttings, visible from just one standing position. The Five Sisters Hills near Mzima Springs, like the Chyulus, are also young volcanic cones. Its interesting and varied geology, its interesting history, its great herds of elephant and buffalo, its unique bush lions and rich biodiversity in fauna, flora and insect life make the Tsavo National Park one of the most unique and important National Parks in Kenya and certainly in the world. Here, nothing is contrived, and wild animals have the space they need in a pristine wilderness setting to enjoy the birth-right of all animals, both wild and domesticated - a quality of life. |
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Tumarin Ranch is situated approximately 280 Kms North of Nairobi, and 45 kms from Nanyuki town. It is a stunning 3000 acre property dedicated to the conservation of wildlife with sweeping views of the Mount Kenya to the South and the Northern Frontier District to the North. It borders Mpala ranch, and is one of Laikipia Districts many conservation areas. Kerry Glen and James Christian purchased Tumarin in 2006 as a home and base for their Safaris. The vegetation of the ranch is dominated by semi arid scrubland with a few open black cotton clearings, its wildlife, incorporating most of the usual arid land species such as greater kudu, buffalo, migratory herds of elephant, impala, steinbuck, zebra both common and grevy, gerenuk, and grants gazelle, along with lions, cheetah and leopards. |
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Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. One of the Conservation Service Centre's more progressive clients is The Wilderness Guardian Company, a community-centred initiative based at the Loisaba Ranch in northern Laikipia. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbours and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. The Wilderness Guardian Company's latest innovation is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project will give the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change, and which yielded three of our orphans - Uaso, Loisaba and Laikipia. |
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Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. Loisaba bestrides the border of Laikipia and Kenya’s rugged Northern Frontier District. Only a few miles from the equator, this private game ranch comprises of 60,000 acres in an area of remote beauty where the farm management and local Laikipiak Maasai & Samburu community work together to preserve the environment and abundant surrounding wildlife. The Western boundary borders with the warlike Pokot tribe, who are certainly not known to be ele-friendly. There poaching, cattle rustling, and resolving tribal vendettas is common place. The view from Loisaba extends hundreds of miles – to Mount Kenya, the Loldaiga Hills and the Mathews Range. Through Loisaba roam Elephant, Lion and Leopard alongside the endemic northern species that thrive there – Gerenuk, Grevy’s Zebra and Reticulated Giraffe. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbors and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. One of The Wilderness Guardian Company's innovations is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project gives the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change. This area has yielded five of our orphans over the years - Uaso, Loisaba, Laikipia, Tano and now Chemi Chemi. |
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The Tsavo National Park encompasses 8,000 sq. miles (20,812 sq. kms) and as such is one of the largest National Parks in the world, the same size as Israel, Wales or Michigan State. It was gazetted as a National Park in l949, since it was largely uninhabited, being so arid, useless for arable purposes and infested with tsetse fly that transmit trypanosomiasis to domestic livestock, and therefore unsuitable for ranching. It was “no-man’s land” traversed only by elephant poachers and it was home to a large population of both Black rhino and elephants. Moreover, it was the only large chunk of country that had the size to afford elephants the space they need for a quality of life in wild terms. For administrative purposes Tsavo was divided into two sections; everything East of the main Nairobi Mombasa railway line designated as Tsavo East National Park, and the country lying west of the railway line, Tsavo West National Park. Only two permanent rivers run through this large tract of land, the Tsavo river that has its source at the foothills of Kilimanjaro, (Africa’s highest mountain), boosted by the waters of the Mzima Springs and the Athi river that rises in the foothills of the Aberdare Mountains in the highlands of Kenya, bypasses Nairobi city and continues on down into Tsavo East National Park there to be joined by the Tsavo to become the Galana, spilling into the Indian Ocean near the coastal town of Malindi as the Sabaki. This river enjoys three different tribal names, and is the lifeblood of the arid Eastern section of the Park. There was a time when the Tsavo ecosystem (l6,000 square miles in extent i.e.twice the size of the Park) held a population of 45,000 elephants and 20,000 Black Rhino. Today, the Ivory and Rhino Horn driven by the Far East have reduced the elephant population to 12,000 and the Black Rhino almost to extinction. Just l00 remain in Tsavo with just another 400 in protected land throughout Kenya. Tsavo West enjoys a higher rainfall that Tsavo East, as well as spectacular scenery and a more diverse habitat than its Eastern neighbor which is characterized by flat terrain. Temperatures range from 20 – 30 C and rainfall from 200 mm – 700 mm per annum. However despite enjoying a higher rainfall than Tsavo East, Tsavo East still has the edge on the West wildlife-wise. It remains home to most of the Tsavo elephant herds and has a greater diversity of species present in greater numbers than the Western sector. Nevertheless, the habitat of Tsavo West is stunning, comprised of open plains alternating with Acacia and Commiphora scrubland interspersed by huge Baobabs, (said to live a thousand years); rocky ridges and unexpected outcroppings of ancient basement rock alongside recent lava flows and ash cones, sizeable hills of ancient origin that have endemics and are covered in dense vegetation, extensive palm thickets and stretches of beautiful riverine species. There are several crystal clear springs that emerge from the lava – Mzima being the most famous. Water filtered through the porous ash of the nearby Chyulu hills reaches basement rock to flow underground and gush forth from lava ridges. The springs create an oasis in the heart of an arid landscape and are populated by hippos, crocodiles, turtles, and fish, easily viewed because of the clarity of the water. Here a rich array of bird and wildlife congregate, and the Springs supply water taken from underground for the Port town of Mombasa, 160 miles away. Tsavo West also has one of Kenya’s two electrically fenced rhino Sanctuaries, the other being Lake Nakuru National Park. The youngest cones of the beautiful Chyulu hills were formed only some 500 years ago, covered in a rare emergent forest which traps some 3 metres of mist vapour each year, which feeds Mzima and the other springs of the area. Sadly, this beautiful forest, already home to endemic species, is currently under threat from uncontrolled logging and charcoal burning. The word “Mzima” means life and here some 220 million litres of water a day flowing from the lava sustain a complex pyramid of life, hippo dung nutrients enriching a rich aquatic ecosystem. The waters of Mzima eventually find their way into the Tsavo river, boosting its flow through the entire Tsavo National Park and ensuring that the Galana in Tsavo East remains permanent and the lifeblood of a very arid place. |
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Tsavo West National Park is scenically stunning, dominated by the undulating Chyulu Hills of recent volcanic origin, recent lava flows from new recently more active cones such as Shaitani, ancient basement outcropping hills with endemic plants, beautiful crystal clear springs fed by the emerging Mist Forest of the Chyulu range, and all dominated by towering Mt. Kilimanjaro on the Tanzanian side of the Kenya Tanzania border. The Rombo area used to be famous for its high density of endangered Black Rhinos. Standing on Lookout Hill, it was not unusual to be able to count at least 80 Black Rhinos in the valley beneath. Sadly, all have now been practically entirely eliminated in the wild throughout Tsavo, but for a few survivors who are being held under tight security within the electrically fenced Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary. Tsavo West National Park covers 7065 square kilometers, and the varied terrain ranges in altitude from 200 – 1000 metres. Both Tsavo East and West are important Elephant Areas which combined harbour the country’s greatest single population of elephants, currently standing at around l0,000. Unfortunately, Tsavo is surrounded by tribes that are anything but ele-friendly including a branch of the Masai tribe on the Southern border of Tsavo West near the Ziwani Sisal Estate. Here, Masai tribesmen have illegally intruded into the Park to graze their livestock, and although illegal, the Government has found it politically sensitive to drive the livestock out and risk the ire of the Masai and other pastorally based tribes. Their votes could swing the balance in the forthcoming elections scheduled to be held in 2012. The illegal intrusion of livestock into the Park during last year’s drought cost the Park dearly, when it lost some 800 hippos due to lack of grazing caused by the intrusion of pastoral cattle. Many elephants and other animals also succumbed to hitherto unknown diseases and parasites transmitted by diseased and dying cattle. At the Southern end of the Park, the sisal of Ziwani Sisal Estate, plus irrigation canals of fresh water in what was at one time a favorite migration route for elephants, have brought a great deal of human/wildlife conflict. Every time the authorities try to drive some of the Masai cattle out of the Park, elephants are brutally speared, maimed and killed in reprisal attacks. Furthermore, Tanzanian Nationals involved in Ivory Smuggling often trespass into Tsavo West National Park where they can kill elephants and rapidly escape with the ivory across the International Border separating the two countries. Other tribes such as the Wateita and WaTaveta are heavily involved in the Bushmeat trade, which is now commercial, and are responsible for taking an enormous toll of the meat species. Hence today, Tsavo West National Park is beset by many human related problems, its stock of wildlife dwindling and the Government apparently unwilling to do anything about addressing the problems, more interested in politics and votes than in the country’s irreplaceable National heritage. |
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Tsavo West National Park is scenically stunning, dominated by the undulating Chyulu Hills of recent volcanic origin, recent lava flows from new recently more active cones such as Shaitani, ancient basement outcropping hills with endemic plants, beautiful crystal clear springs fed by the emerging Mist Forest of the Chyulu range, and all dominated by towering Mt. Kilimanjaro on the Tanzanian side of the Kenya Tanzania border. The Rombo area used to be famous for its high density of endangered Black Rhinos. Standing on Lookout Hill, it was not unusual to be able to count at least 80 Black Rhinos in the valley beneath. Sadly, all have now been practically entirely eliminated in the wild throughout Tsavo, but for a few survivors who are being held under tight security within the electrically fenced Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary. Tsavo West National Park covers 7065 square kilometers, and the varied terrain ranges in altitude from 200 – 1000 metres. Both Tsavo East and West are important Elephant Areas which combined harbour the country’s greatest single population of elephants, currently standing at around l0,000. Unfortunately, Tsavo is surrounded by tribes that are anything but ele-friendly including a branch of the Masai tribe on the Southern border of Tsavo West near the Ziwani Sisal Estate. Here, Masai tribesmen have illegally intruded into the Park to graze their livestock, and although illegal, the Government has found it politically sensitive to drive the livestock out and risk the ire of the Masai and other pastorally based tribes. Their votes could swing the balance in the forthcoming elections scheduled to be held in 2012. The illegal intrusion of livestock into the Park during last year’s drought cost the Park dearly, when it lost some 800 hippos due to lack of grazing caused by the intrusion of pastoral cattle. Many elephants and other animals also succumbed to hitherto unknown diseases and parasites transmitted by diseased and dying cattle. At the Southern end of the Park, the sisal of Ziwani Sisal Estate, plus irrigation canals of fresh water in what was at one time a favorite migration route for elephants, have brought a great deal of human/wildlife conflict. Every time the authorities try to drive some of the Masai cattle out of the Park, elephants are brutally speared, maimed and killed in reprisal attacks. Furthermore, Tanzanian Nationals involved in Ivory Smuggling often trespass into Tsavo West National Park where they can kill elephants and rapidly escape with the ivory across the International Border separating the two countries. Other tribes such as the Wateita and WaTaveta are heavily involved in the Bushmeat trade, which is now commercial, and are responsible for taking an enormous toll of the meat species. Hence today, Tsavo West National Park is beset by many human related problems, its stock of wildlife dwindling and the Government apparently unwilling to do anything about addressing the problems, more interested in politics and votes than in the country’s irreplaceable National heritage. |