General
July and August have been the driest since the Conservancy started operating in the Mara, with only around 5 mm recorded at Serena for August. The predictions are still for enhanced rain in October through December.
The County Government have announced their intention to increase Park Fees and have informed the industry that with effect from 1st January 2024 the entrance fee will be US$ 100 and that we will now operate on low (green)/ high (July 1st to December 31st) season rates. The high season rate will now be US$ 200 per 12 hour ticket. We don’t have a clear indication of the increase in Citizen and Resident rates but they will probably go up to Ksh 3,000 per ticket.
The County Government have also announced that they will be issuing new leases to all camps and lodges in the Reserve and that they will take into account previous “beneficiary” arrangements. From now on the annual Lease Fee will be set at Ksh 5,000,000 (Five million) for lodges, Ksh 3 million for Eco-camps and Ksh 2 million for special campsites. All beneficiaries will be listed in the lease and they will receive 90% of the lease fee. On top of that the County will charge a bed-night fee of US$ 80 per person staying in any camp or lodge. This will be split equally between the County and beneficiaries.
I met with the Governor on the 9th to discuss a way in which we can retain revenue at source. The lawyers have been asked to redraft the proposal that was presented and have just prepared one.
I met with members of a Task Force established by the Samburu County Government to explore management options for the Samburu Game Reserve. They were very interested in the Mara Conservancy model.
China’s Minister for Culture and Tourism Mr Hu Heping, visited the Triangle with a delegation from China and the Embassy on the 15/16th and we held a meeting with them on the 16th to explain about the Mara and tourism.
President William Ruto visited the Triangle on the 22nd for a brief game drive before proceeding to open the Maa Cultural week at Sekenani. We were also visited by three Governors and two Principal Secretaries and several other senior Government Officers. The President made some far reaching announcements at the Cultural event – not least, is that Kajiado County will take over control of Amboseli from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). There has been a long standing dispute between Kajiado and KWS over revenue sharing and the announcement was extremely popular with the Maasai community.
Our speed tracker is working well and is definitely having a positive impact. The following is an excerpt from this month’s report:
In this month a total of 57 speed violations was recorded. This is a reduction from last month’s 115 speed violations. The highest recorded speed was 80 Km/h. A total of 10 vehicles were fined and the vehicles which had exceeded the speed by 5Kph were given verbal warnings. Out of the 2,063 vehicles passing the camera, 97% were respecting the speed limit.
Collaboration Agreement
We held a reporting cum planning meeting on the 11th and have set the program for the next three months. We achieved 95% of our goals for the previous quarter and have an equally busy next quarter.
· Installed culverts on Phase I roads;
· Connected water to the Keekorok airstrip and staff housing;
· Now have piped water at Look Out, Mara Simba and Olare Orok;
· Working on ranger post at Olare Orok;
· Drilled a borehole at Enompuai;
· Building toilet block and staff quarters at Look Out;
· Made new roads across the Talek and to Ol Kiombo;
· Installing new signs;
· Working on new road from Talek to Sekenani;
· Rebuilt the road from Sekenani to Keekorok;
· Graded the road from Mara Bridge to Keekorok.
The Look Out borehole collapsed and will require additional work to stabilize the walls, this has meant that we have had to carry water for the construction of toilets, something we had tried hard to avoid.
The new roads have been very heavily used and it is difficult to imagine that they were only constructed a few months ago. We also managed to rip up, grade and roll the main road from Sekenani to Keekorok but it only lasted a few days before the combination of dry weather, thousands of vehicle movements and over speeding destroyed all the work we had done – over speeding is a major factor.
Work is also progressing well on the new road from Talek to Seenani; this road was contracted out to Grade A. The first seven kilometres have been constructed, the first bridge is almost complete and work has started on the second bridge. Work on the main bridge over the Talek Bridge has started and will probably take four months to complete – weather permitting. There is still some uncertainty over the alignment from the Talek River to Sekenani and this needs to be resolved.
Tourism
We had significantly more non-resident adult visitors this July than ever before (14,007 vs 11,262 in 2019). The Triangle is increasingly popular with tourists from the main Reserve and there were days when we had over 500 visitors (up to 150 vehicles) crossing the river – we classify these as non-paying, as they have already paid their tickets in the main Reserve. These numbers place considerable strain on our resources, especially the gate and toilet facilities at Mara Bridge, roads and anti-harassment teams. However, tourist numbers started to drop off around 27th and the high season will end around mid-September.
Staff
We sent 30 trainees to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Training College at Manyani for a three month course. This course was supposed to be for community rangers and we added our drivers and one or two others. Unfortunately, it became a political hot potato, every local politician thought that we were recruiting new staff and we were inundated with calls berating us for not taking “their” people. The whole experience was most unpleasant and in the end we gave in and allowed each MCA to appoint one new recruit.
Wildlife and Veterinary
Dr Takita treated an injured lion cub at Musiara on the 4th, it had been injured in a skirmish with other lions.
It has been a surprisingly poor migration, given the exceptionally dry conditions. There have been no wildebeest concentrations in the Main Reserve and never more than 100,000 in the Triangle, at a time when we would have expected four or five times that number. They did move into the Triangle in large numbers in the first ten days, we then had a small amount of rain, this triggered a return into Tanzania and by mid-month only a fraction remained. The huge concentration in the Lemai Wedge coincided with a spike in poaching and we began to see large numbers of snares.
One young male was euthanized by Dr Njoroge after a fight with lions from the Musiara Marsh, his front right shoulder was completely crushed and there was no chance of healing.
One elephant was found dead on the 26th near Kishanga, it appears to have died of natural causes. The tusks were recovered.
Dr Takita removed a snare from a zebra on the 30th.
We have received 5,000 doses of rabies vaccine and will start a vaccination campaign for all dogs along the escarpment at the beginning of September.
Security
We managed to arrest 49 people in August, 40 of them for poaching, five for illegal logging in the Reserve and four others for cutting grass in the Northern Serengeti. We recovered 907 wire snares, rescued 96 wildebeest from snares, found 40 dead in snares and where another 31 had been butchered, we also found one zebra and one Coke’s Hartebeest had been butchered. The Wa Kuria poachers are changing tactics, do very little hunting at night with torches and are concentrating on hunting during the day; they are also increasingly using children to set the snares and drive animals into the snare lines. Their rationale is that children won’t be jailed!!
Seventy wire snares were collected on the 2nd, nothing had been killed. One person was arrested on the 3rd, near Machwechwe, he was part of a group of five hunting with machetes. On that same day the Ngiro-are rangers recovered 16 snares and rescued one wildebeest.
One person was arrested at Bushtops in the Northern Serengeti on the 6th, he was part of a group of three. 12 wire snares were collected along the escarpment. The following day a total of eight people were arrested; in the first incident the Iseiya rangers caught six people as they came into the Serengeti to hunt at 7.30 pm. That same evening the Nigro-are rangers arrested two people as they came in to check snares – seven snares were recovered and one wildebeest rescued.
Thirty seven more snares were collected on the 8th, one wildebeest was dead in a snare and two had been butchered.
The rangers chased five poachers between Bushtops and Tabora B on the night of the 9th, sadly they escaped but not before killing one zebra.
A total of 164 wire snares were collected on the 10th all along the escarpment in the Lemai Wedge; Four wildebeest were dead in snares, seven were rescued and a further five had been butchered.
The Iseiya rangers went out on the evening of the 11th and saw nothing all night but managed to arrest one person early the next morning as he chased wildebeest with three dogs, he also had 11 wire snares. The patrol found where one kongoni had been butchered. One the same day, the 11th, the Nigro-are rangers managed to arrest one person and recover 26 wire snares – two wildebeest were rescued, three had been butchered and one was dead in a snare. The rangers managed to arrest two more people the same evening.
The Iseiya rangers returned to the same area as the previous evening near Machechwe and managed to arrest one person, they continued with their patrol and managed to arrest three more people for poaching and another two for cutting grass in the Park – Morani, our tracker dog, was responsible for one arrest. The Nigro-are rangers continued to collect snares and recovered 96 on the 12th – 10 wildebeest were rescued, two were dead and one had been butchered. They set an ambush on the snares and managed to arrest two people as they carried meat.
We continued to collect snares and another 79 were found around Kokamange in the Lemai Wedge on the 13th – 12 wildebeest were rescued, nine were dead and another 12 had been butchered. The rangers set an ambush again and managed to arrest one person from a group of three.
Forty one snares were collected on the 14th and one person was arrested. Two wildebeest were rescued and one had been butchered.
Forty five snares were collected on the 15th – one wildebeest was rescued, five were dead and two had been butchered. We continued to see a lot of poaching activity in the Lemai Wedge and the following day two people were arrested by our Nigro-are rangers; 11 snares were collected and one animal rescued. Two days later two more people were arrested by the same team as they came in to hunt.
The rangers collected 12 snares on the 19th – one animal was rescued and one was found dead.
The rangers went on a day/night patrol across the river on the 20/21 and managed to arrest 10 people in an area called Mbali Mbali – four of them were cutting grass, the rest poaching. A further two people were arrested by the Ngiro-are team along the escarpment in Tanzania – three snares were recovered.
Our community scouts impounded a power saw that was being used to cut trees along the escarpment on the 23rd. They, together with the rangers from Ngiro-are and the local Chief then managed to arrest five people that had been involved in the tree cutting.
We continued to recover snares and collected 38 on the 24th, six wildebeest were rescued and six found dead in snares. One person was arrested on the 26th and 24 snares collected and then on the 27th three more people were arrested in the afternoon by the Iseiya team. A total of 62 wire snares were recovered – nine wildebeest were rescued and eight were found dead.
A further 55 snares were collected on the 28th – nine animals were rescued and four were dead. The following day the Ngiro-are rangers set an all-day ambush on some snares and managed to arrest four people in the afternoon. Thirty three snares were recovered and nine wildebeest rescued.
A total of 128 snares were collected on the 30th, 38 of them across the riven and the remainder in the Lemai Wedge. Fourteen wildebeest were rescued, nine were dead and seven had been butchered. The following day the Ngiro-are rangers found 23 snares and rescued 17 wildebeest.
Revenue and Accounts
The Kenya Shilling continues its gradual devaluation against the US$, it is now trading at around 145 to the $. This has been good for us, as most of our revenue is collected in $$. As a result, our July revenue was the highest we have ever recorded in a single month. We can expect August to be even better.
We have completed our Annual Audit for the financial year ending the 30th June and should have a draft report out by early September.
Repairs and Maintenance
We completed the new roads in the rhino sector near Oloololo and have started filling in pot holes on the main roads.
We have nearly completed the expansion of our stores, kitchen and mess at Iseiya.
We graded some sections of our main roads to try and remove some of the corrugations – the result of too many vehicles, and to a lesser extent, over-speeding.
The windmill at Oloololo has a problem, fortunately we have a back-up generator and submersible pump there.
We repaired a section of road between Ngiro-are and Kinyangaga on the Tanzanian border.
We are making new canvas covers for vehicles and repairing our tentage.
Report on focus for July
Focus for August 2023
· Repair Oloololo windmill;
· Install culverts on new road along Maji Machafu;
· Surface the same road;
· Complete kitchen and mess area at Iseiya; and
· Complete canvas work.
Work on Collaboration Agreement
· Complete Olare Orok;
· Complete Phase II of road network;
· Continue with toilets at Look Out;
· Repair borehole at Look Out;
· Install culverts on Phase II roads;
· Install radio system;
· Deliver two new vehicles donated by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust;
· Complete water supply to Enompuai; and
· Maintain vehicles.