General
The rains returned with a vengeance around the 12th, flooding areas, destroying sections of the road network and ensuring that all the grasslands were waterlogged. Some exceptional storms from the 23rd led to the highest river levels we have ever seen, flooding our gate house for the fourth or fifth time this year, something that had only happened once or twice in 20 years. The storms just got heavier and the river higher, breaking records day after day. The Bailey bridge at Purungat had the approaches washed away and water was flowing over the bridge on several occasions, something that had never happened before. However, much worse than that, the lower concrete bridge collapsed. Camps upstream were washed away, Ngerende Bush Camp was totally surrounded and the staff had to be evacuated by the Mara Elephant Project (MEP) helicopter.
The incessant rain made moving around extremely difficult, restricted patrols and compounding an already dire situation. The combination of Covid-19 and the heaviest and most sustained rains in a lifetime will set us back 10 years and may take us years to recover.
We held a meeting convened by the Governor, at Mara Sarova, on the 4th. To discuss increased collaboration between the main Reserve and the Mara Conservancy. The Governor was categorical that the Government were watching how the Mara was managed and that failure to improve would lead to a take-over by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). This was followed up by a visit to the Main Reserve on the 7th.
Wildeye and some of their clients have very kindly donated US$ 12,000 and undertaken to raise more money for us by “selling” photographs. Their proposal is to have a three tier rate and get people to donate either US$ 20, 40 or 80 – in return they will get photographs or a book from a “day in the Mara”.
We are also exploring options with Angama and may look at them underwriting, or at least recommending a soft loan from Co-Op Bank.
The Nation Media Group interviewed the Chief Executive on the 17th for newspaper articles and a TV item.
We received an unrestricted donation of US$ 100,000 from Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS) in the United States on the 17th, through the support and recommendation of Dr George Powell. George is now retired from WWF but has been a very keen ally of ours. We might work with WPS on a trail cam system that reports on human activity in real time.
COVID-19
Parts of Kenya continue to be locked out – Nairobi and three Counties at the Coast. The virus has not yet taken off in Kenya, as it did in parts of Europe and the United States. There had been projections of up to 10,000 people infected by the end of April, in fact the figures by end month were 396 infected, 14 dead and 144 recovered. However, this is not to minimize the devastating effect of the virus on Kenya, Kenyans and the economy. Companies will fold, thousands of people laid off, many thousands more will be on half pay or on unpaid leave. I get daily requests to help people who are unable to pay their rent, don’t have enough money to buy food and medicine and are essentially destitute as a result of losing their jobs – these are proud people who were working hard to eke out a living.
The impact on tourism , one of the hardest hit sectors, is almost too dire to contemplate. We originally hoped that we would see a re-opening of some of the camps and lodges by the beginning of June, and a trickle of tourists by then. Almost no chance, we are now looking at having next to no tourists for a year – maybe some signs of recovery in June/July 2021. Based on previous experience, it will take years for tourism to bounce back to pre-Corona levels.
Tourism
We had less than 20 residents visit the Triangle in April – hardly worth the cost of keeping our gates open. The prospects look equally dire for the coming months and we can’t expect any numbers of foreign visitors for a year. Some of the camps and lodges are talking of re-opening in June – it is unlikely that they will have sufficient bookings to justify opening and we can anticipate that some of them will remain closed for months.
Virtually every camp or lodge along the Mara River had some degree of damage from the exceptionally high river levels towards the end of April. Lodges like Mara Safari Club and Mara River Lodge were flooded and a number of camps had at least one tent damaged.
Staff
Losingo was trying to chase away a hippo from Angama on the 1st when a thunder flash that he had lit exploded in his hand, severely damaging his fingers. He was immediately taken to Kilgoris before being transferred to Tenwek Hospital, where he was operated on .
Our staff who had been on two weeks isolation were released on the 3rd and Joseph Naiminda was released the following day in Nairobi. We then sent approximately 60 people for two weeks leave.
We have started on staff appraisals using the forms developed with the help of Mr Steve Mwiti. A great deal of time and effort has been put into training the appraisers and making people aware of the need for honest and transparent appraisals.
We will be sending people home for a month in May with full pay. The time at home will be offset against off-days accrued. We are also planning on a schedule of unpaid leave from June, probably two weeks unpaid in a month.
Research
Dr Petra Campbell produced a report on giraffe numbers in the Masai Mara in March entitled:
Masai Giraffe Conservation Assessment in the Mara Triangle, Kenya March 2020.
The key points were:
· The population of Masai giraffe has declined by 50% in the past thirty years;
· A count in 2017 estimated that there were 2,607 giraffe in the Mara ecosystem, well up from a previous count in 2010;
· The majority of giraffe – 64% were on the conservancies;
· The latest estimate for giraffe in the ecosystem was 2,674 of which 160 different giraffe were identified in the Triangle in 2020;
Another paper was published on the Mara River entitled:
A River of Bones: Wildebeest Skeletons Leave a Legacy of Mass Mortality in the Mara River, Kenya (2020). A. L. Subalusky, C. L. Dutton, E. J. Rosi, L. M. Puth and D. M. Post. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. www.frontiersin.org. 1 February 2020 | Volume 8 | Article 31
Over the past few years it has been estimated that an average of 6,250 wildebeest die in the Mara River each year and the researchers have looked at the nutrient impact from approximately 220,000 Kg (220 metric tons) of bones on the river as a result of these drownings. They estimate that “approximately half of a wildebeest carcass is soft tissue, which decomposes over weeks to months, but the other half is bone, which comprises 95% of the phosphorus (P) in a carcass and decomposes over years (Subalusky et al., 2017).” They calculated the rate of decomposition and found that “Bones are comprised of 7–27% labile material that decomposes over 78–119 days, and 73–93% refractory material that decomposes over > 80 years.” It is difficult to see the impact of these drownings on the long term health of the river but the authors conclude that: “In combination, these findings suggest that bones may influence nutrient cycling, ecosystem function, and food webs in the Mara River, potentially on decadal time scales.”
Wildlife
A lioness died near the Kichwa airstrip on the 6th, we think that she was the animal that fell out of a tree two months ago.
At least two hippo died during the month, one of them provided a meal for four lions for days. The other one was fed on by up to 50 hippo for several days.
One lioness was seen with small cubs along the main road to Oloololo, she then disappeared but unless lions are right next to a road, or on the road they are virtually impossible to find in the long grass.
Security
April is the first month in 17 years that we have not caught any poachers, our limited patrols saw virtually no signs of poaching. We presume it was just too wet for the poachers to even operate, certainly there was no chance of drying meat and camping out
The exceptionally wet conditions made it very difficult for us to patrol large sections of the Lemai Wedge. At least three hippo were killed and butchered along the Mara River, near Lemai between the 6th and 8th, but our teams were unable to get there.
Revenue and Accounts
March revenue was down by 31% on March last year and down over 53% on February. However, April was catastrophic and we can expect the same for months to come. In some ways we are fortunate that this hit in low season, but we can write off 2020. In some ways we are lucky that there are no tourists at this time, the infrastructure has been so damaged by the relentless rain that it would have been impossible for people to do game drives. Even if they had been able, it would have caused considerably more damage to our roads.
We have no income for April, apart from two very kind donations. The prognosis is now for little, or no income for the remainder of the year.
Repairs and maintenance
One of our drivers wrote of the control box in a Suzuki by driving into a deep pool of water. It was replaced at a cost of Ksh 130,000.
Grade A completed the work on the gully at Naisukut by filling up the area where the road had been washed away, returning the original road alignment and putting in two 8x4 box culverts. We will retain the detour as a game drive road and landscaped the murram pit into a small dam.
We then gave Grade A a much smaller gully to fill and install two 90 cm culverts. The work was completed on the 28th.
We continued to work on the roads where and whenever possible. We managed to fill some of the holes along the river road, replace two damaged culverts, and dig large drains to take the water off the road to Nigro-are and the roads to the river. It was very frustrating, each time we managed to do some work we were hit by large storms.
We received the first three modified ambulances from Rob’s Magic, one vehicle was retained in Narok and the other sent to the Main Reserve as a patrol vehicle. The third was delivered to the office on the 29th. The remaining seven should be delivered in May.
We have interest in purchasing our old Cat 140H grader.
We have just started on trying to repair the approach to the Bailey Bridge at Purungat, another major undertaking that is beyond our limited capabilities. We will work together with Grade A and cover their costs but this road is a lifeline to the camps and lodges in the Mara and we would appreciate any contributions. The collapsed lower bridge is a different matter altogether, we will definitely require County or Government support to repair that bridge.
Report on focus for April
Focus for May 2020
· Continue with cost-cutting measures;
· Continue with staff appraisals;
· Concentrate on putting more culverts;
· Repair the worst damage to the roads;
· Repair the approaches to the main bridge at Purungat;
· Complete contract with the County;
· Possibly sell the Cat 140H grader;
· Collect remaining vehicles for the County; and
· Continue to seek donor support.