General
This was the driest December for the 20 years we have been in the Mara, that is until the last two days of the month, when we had decent rain.
There appears to be a slight tug of war of the Lemek Conservancy, at least one group is trying to lease the whole of Lemek, probably the most beautiful of the Conservancies in the western Mara ecosystem. There is suddenly a realization that land values in the Mara are too low, partly driven by the precedence set in Laikipia and more recently on Naratoi. Landowners are parceling-off five acre plots for an exorbitant price – as high as US$ 2 million for a plot in Laikipia and around US$ 300,000 elsewhere. This for the right to build a property and have access to a larger area. People have realized that they can lease, or purchases, 100 acres for a camp or lodge in a prime wildlife area at a small fraction of the cost and still have access to a far larger area.
The Maasai morans (warriors) celebrated their Eunoto in a very colorful week-long ceremony , graduating to junior elders between the 24th and 30th, ceasing pressure on our lions. We have spent considerable time and resources in protecting our lions from the morans and managed to stop four attempts to kill one during the year, and there was intense pressure just before graduation. The elders are working on an alternative to killing lions as part of their cultural requirements and we hope that future age sets will no longer be required to kill a lion.
Mr Robert Carr-Hartley resigned from the Board, citing pressure of work. Robert has been a very important Board member for several years and we are most grateful for all the advice and support that he has given.
We received another donation of US$ 50,000 from Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS). Their support has kept us going for the past year and a half and we cannot ever thank them enough.
Dogs
Sopia, one of the Iseiya tracker dogs euthanized on the 5th, she had been sick for several weeks and had just returned from a stay in Nairobi. It would appear that she had severe organ damage as a result of Trypanosomiasis and the prophylactic drugs we use.
Collaboration Agreement
We are still waiting for a new agreement but in the meantime we helped with working on key roads. The roads between Talek and Musiara and Keekorok to Ololamutia are now in perfect condition.
COVID-19
The Omicron variant seems to be incredibly contagious and has spread throughout the World like wildlife, it may just be the fastest spreading human virus in history – that’s the bad news. The good news is that it does not appear to be nearly as virulent and dangerous as the earlier variants, people who have been double vaccinated have fairly mild, flu-like, symptoms and the reports are that a Pfizer or Moderna booster increases immunity 83x (8,300%). In Kenya, we have seen a very significant spike in the positivity rate – it has gone from 2-3% to over 35% but we are not seeing a significant increase in hospitalization. Conventional wisdom has it that such a fast moving, and not very serious, virus will infect everyone and burn out quickly. Hopefully, this will mean the end of the pandemic.
In the meantime, governments are grappling with Omicron. Do they close borders, stop international travel? Or, allow it to spread as quickly as possible , knowing that no number of restrictions will actually stop it from spreading.
In Kenya: The Government has just approved booster injections for double vaccinated people who were vaccinated six months ago. The Government reached their target of 10 million people vaccinated, of which 4,155,832 were now fully vaccinated. 292,237 people have so far tested positive from 3 million tests – 5,376 people have died from Covid.
Tourism
There is no doubt that we have been hit by the Omicron and resulting restrictions on international travel. The scale of which is difficult to determine.
Staff
We have virtually completed all the staff appraisals.
We will send 24 rangers to the Kenya Wildlife Training School at Manyani in January, but before then we will conduct our annual staff transfers.
Wildlife
Turbi, a young – 8 years old – rhino male was killed in what appears to have been a fight with another male on the 2nd, he was found on the 3rd with multiple injuries, the fatal one pierced his stomach. Turbi was born in the Main Reserve and crossed over in the past year.
The male Martial eagle from Oloololo was apparently poisoned and was found dead on Oloisukut Conservancy.
A cheetah was killed by lions on the 19th, she was one of a young pair that had taken up residence along the river and for once we thought that they would remain. The one downside to a healthy lion population is that there is no chance for animals like cheetah.
A lioness was seriously injured by a buffalo near Kilo 2 on the 21st – she is part of the pride that specialized in hunting buffalo.
There is a chance that Tanzania will exchange two rhino for 20 roan antelope, we are working with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to evaluate the possibility of 10 roan being released in an area adjoining the Triangle. This was their natural habitat and they occurred in the Triangle until 1994 – when the last one was poached. In 2014 we had one animal wander up from Tanzania, it stayed for several weeks before disappearing.
Security
Eight people were arrested in December, two of them for trying to spear a lion. We collected 417 wire snares and found where at least five hippo had been poached. The table below summarizes the arrests made and snares collected since 2017 (the end columns are totals since 2001). Our peak year was 2016, we arrested 434 people and collected 7,781 snares – since then we have seen a major reduction in the amount of poaching - this year we arrested 141 people and recovered 3,512 snares. We have virtually stopped poaching in the Western Mara but may never eliminate it in the Northern Serengeti. However, we have definitely made a major impact, thanks to the collaboration with our Tanzanian counterparts and working so closely together.
Table 1: Summary of arrests made and snares collected
We have summarized our security work for 2021 in the form of three figures: showing the extent of our patrols; main areas of poacher activity and the areas where snaring is worst. One will notice that considerable time is spent working with our Tanzanian counterparts in the Lemai Wedge, and even further afield.
Figures 1-3: Areas patrolled in 2021, arrests made and snares collected
We continue to collect snares and recovered 219 between the 30th November and 5th of this month. One zebra and one wildebeest was rescued and two were dead in snares.
A routine patrol across the river around Nyamburi and Ngira on the 6th came across several signs of poaching with the remains of impala, Thompson’s gazelle and hippo found in fairly recent camps. On the same day there was another attempt to kill a lion on Oloisukut Conservancy. The Oloisukut rangers saw the morans but were unable to arrest anyone, they called for reinforcements from our rangers at Oloololo and they were able to arrest two people. The morans had obviously heard of a pride of lions that had killed a hippo and were targeting them when first spotted.
One more butchered hippo was seen on the 7th near Watu Kumi in the Lemai Wedge. More snares, 75, were collected between the 9th and 11th and then on the 11th a routine patrol came across two freshly killed hippo along the Mara River near Ngira. There was no sign of the poachers and so the rangers decided to set an ambush that night. They came across three poachers as they were getting into position and managed to arrest all three. They were not part of the hippo gang, but had snares, fishing line, spears and bows with poisoned arrows. No one came back to the hippo, we presume that the rangers must have been seen.
Twenty five snares were collected on the 26th, all of them in the Lemai Wedge – one zebra was found dead in a snare. Another 93 snares were collected on the 27h and 28th. One eland was found dead in a snare and one zebra rescued. The rangers set an ambush across the river on the 28th, poachers came in but no one was arrested – the poachers killed one buffalo and one zebra before escaping.
People were caught on camera, crossing Daraja ya Mzee at 3.02 am on the 30th. The rangers left before five and tried using the dogs on the tracks, the tracks were lost after a while and so the rangers searched the area and found a speared hippo. They ambushed the site that night and managed to arrest the three people who came in to butcher the animal.
Revenue and Accounts
Our management accounts for the first five months showed a significant increase in income over budget (Ksh 127.6 over Ksh 77.3 million) but also a 12% increase in expenditure over budget (Ksh 85.8 against a budget of Ksh 76.4 million). Staff costs, both direct and indirect, accounted for 64.2% of our expenditure at Ksh 55 million – and also accounted for most of the overrun. We don’t anticipate reducing salaries but will definitely reduce allowances and minimise any unnecessary expenditure in the coming months.
Repairs and maintenance
We completed work on the extension to the Partikilat road.
We tidied up the camp at Partikilat, removed the temporary kitchen and installed shelving in the new one.
We patched and graded sections of the main roads – they are all in excellent condition.
Collaboration agreement
We graded to road from Talek to Musiara and filled in all the potholes;
We graded, repaired the road from Keekorok to Ololamutia and also cleaned out all the culverts; We repaired the clutch on the County tipper.
Report on focus for December
Focus for January 2022
Conduct staff transfers;
Send rangers to Manyani;
Continue with road works; and
Work on bringing roan antelope to the Mara;
Work on Collaboration Agreement – Dependent on Agreement and funding;
o Road works;
§ Keekorok to Sand River;
§ The road to Ashnil;
§ Possibly improve water supply to Ololamutia;