General

November was un-seasonally dry, with a little rain around the 15th. This does not bode well for much of Kenya – including the eastern portion of the Mara. The drought conditions are very severe and, unless there is rain in December the country will be facing a catastrophe. Already some areas are recording cattle losses in excess of 80%.

Pippa Strong from Abercrombie & Kent has offered to sponsor the design for a Visitor Centre at Oloololo. They have proposed sponsoring a design competition – we would then raise the funds to build it.

The local Administration requested assistance for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education Exams (KCPE) that started on the 28th. We provided one vehicle and 15 rangers for the exercise.

I met with Nathaniel Arnold, Assistant Deputy Director for Law Enforcement in US Fish & Wildlife. He was accompanied by Mr Abdi Doti from the Kenya Wildlife Service.

The Governor held a tourism stakeholders’ meeting for camp and lodge owners on the 28th at Sarova in the Mara. The meeting was well attended but many of the camps sent fairly junior representatives, this was noted by the Governor. The Governor gave an overview of his vision for the Mara which included improving the morale of staff, ensuring that the Mara was not overcrowded, that camps paid their dues and sorted out lease and licence payments. He also wanted to get stakeholders to contribute towards communities and established a committee comprising camp owners, community and County staff to oversee a fund.

Collaboration Agreement

We have started on upgrading the ranger post at Osero Sopia. This is a major project entailing the placing of 17 uni-huts, and then constructing a roof over them. In addition we will construct toilets, kitchen and mess area, collect and store rain water and improve the water supply to the station. We have been asked to fast-track it with a deadline of 5th December for completion.

We repaired the Ol Kiombo and Keekorok airstrips and then graded the roads from Sekenani to Keekorok, to Ololaimutia and then Talek.

We have installed large signs at the entrance points summarizing the Park rules, starting with the point that all visitors must have a valid ticket.

We have started installing a radio system on the 28th and hope to have something in place by early December.

The monitoring teams have been finding people without tickets on a daily basis, on numerous occasions a Warden would call and tell the team to release the offenders, as the vehicle was one of “theirs”. It would appear that the Park fees are going to individuals.

We conducted Phase 3 of our Audit of camps and lodges, the final result will be out in early December but we will be close to 220 camps/lodgers and 6,000 beds. Way too maby for the Mara.

Dogs

We sent our dogs and handlers to Nairobi on the 16th to have them certified by the Kenya Police, They passed with flying colors and have now been certified. This will enable us to use the dogs as evidence, if they are used to catch thieves or poachers.

Research

The paper below discusses the World’s major wildlife migrations, including the wildebeest migrations in Kenya and Tanzania. In Kenya, the Greater Amboseli, Mara-Loita and Athi-Kaputiei wildebeest migrations have crashed by 85%, 81%, and 95%, respectively, since 1977. These are no longer viable migrations and are deemed to no longer exist. The only viable migration remaining in East Africa is the Serengeti/Mara migration – see figure 1 below (Source: Dybas, 2022).

Born to Roam: Tracking the Drama of Earth's Ungulate Migrations. Dybas C.L BioScience Vol 72: No 12. 1141–1148. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac096

What is frightening for us in the Mara – although the population remains stable at around 1.3 million, the wildebeest numbers visiting the Mara have halved in the past ten years, and they are now spending 35 days a years less. This is particularly noticeable in the Main Reserve, where the numbers have greatly reduced, they no longer cross the Talek, and the number of crossings have diminished considerably.

Tourism

Tourist numbers declined in November, part of the normal cycle. We can expect numbers to pick up in December, for Christmas and the New Year.

Staff

We suspended two members of staff for fighting at Nigro-are.

All the rangers will be issued with new uniforms and, hopefully new firearms in December.

Wildlife

Three zebra had snares removed from them by the KWS/Sheldrick vet on the 7th , they were all near the border and had obviously come up from the Lemai Wedge.

One leopard was killed by lions just across the border in the Lamai Wedge, we hope that it was not the very tame female that was often seen on our side of the border near Myles Turner’s Hill.

One poached zebra was found by the Partikilat rangers on the escarpment and they also found a dead giraffe.

The KWS/Sheldrick vet team removed a throwing iron from a giraffe on the 25th – these are short 18” pieces of round iron sharpened at both ends and are used by youths herding cattle to practice their throwing skills on animals. Later the same day the team treated an elephant with a wound on its leg, this elephant had a snare removed a few months ago and had healed remarkably well.

Security

Our collaboration with the Serengeti has to be one of the greatest conservation successes in recent times, and yet it is hardly known or recognized (4,900 people arrested and nearly 70,000 snares recovered by the Mara Conservancy alone). Figure 2, below shows the extent of our patrols in October (a typical month), these have resulted in the arrest of 141 poachers (13+31+59+38) in the past four months, saved countless animals and made a huge swathe of the Mara/Serengeti safe for both wildlife and tourists – a far cry from 20 years ago, when there were no camps and lodges in the Northern Serengeti, animals were killed in their thousands, Masai cattle were stolen almost every month and tourists were under constant threat.

Figure 2: The extent of our patrols, Serengeti in red

A total of 38 people were arrested in November, 236 snares were recovered and six wildebeest rescued. A number of animals were butchered, including: 12 wildebeest, one zebra, one warthog, one impala and a reedbuck. Two wildebeest and a hyena were found dead in snares.

The Ngiro-are rangers found a butchered zebra near the range at Nigro-are and then found two more snares with one dead zebra just across the border. The Iseiya rangers crossed the river and came across three people hunting with dogs, they managed to arrest one. The following evening three more people were arrested in the same area, Ngira, just after dark. They were on their way to hunt. Unfortunately Warden J Nasiti tore a tendon in his heel during the operation. During the day the Nigro-are team recovered seven wire snares and rescued one wildebeest.

We continued to recover snares on the 3rd, a total of 77 were collected, 20 of them from a group that were hunting near Machechwe in the Northern Serengeti. We managed to arrest six people, one of them would not have been caught without Shakaria – our dog from Nigro-are. They had killed one wildebeest when arrested.

Even more snares were collected on the 4th, another 77 in two different areas of the Lemai Wedge during the day – Nyakita Tone and Vichwa Mia Tatu. Five wildebeest had been butchered, two were rescued and one hyena was found dead in a snare. That evening another ambush was laid and three more people arrested with five snares, two wildebeest were dead in snares.

The Oloololo rangers joined up with rangers from Oloisukut Conservancy but did not find anything, our other teams recovered 32 snares near Nyakita Tone and found where two animals had been butchered, two others were rescued.

There were a few days over the full moon when there no signs of poaching but then the rangers joined up with TANAPA rangers from Tabora B on the 10th and managed to arrest two people during the day. That night they set an ambush and managed to catch four more people from a large group of 15 as they were carrying wildebeest meat. Again, Shakaria was responsible for tracking and locating one of the poachers. The patrol continued and three more people were caught on the 11th, they had 20 snares with them.

Fifteen snares were recovered on the 13th and one wildebeest rescued. The Iseiya rangers then joined forces with their counterparts from Tabora B on the 14th. Two people were arrested, another five were seen on the 15th, but all managed to escape.

The rangers joined forces on the 18th for a day/night patrol across the river and managed to arrest one person at Matoro in the Northern Serengeti. He was hunting alone and had three wire snares. A new tactic is to hunt alone, set snares an a likely place and wit for something to be caught. They then butcher what they can and stash the remainder to be collected later.

The rangers went on an extended patrol from the 20th and managed to arrest three people that night at Zonzo. The following morning one more person was arrested. Nothing had been killed.

The TANAPA rangers from Lobo and Tabora B called on the 22nd and requested a joint patrol. They set up an ambush and the poachers started operating in the area from 9.00 pm until midnight – the rangers repositioned and managed to arrest three people from a group of 12 who were hinting with dogs and torches. One wildebeest, one impala and a warthog had been killed. Two more people were arrested at Nyamburi early the following morning with two wildebeest that they had killed.

The rangers returned to Tabora B on the 25th and again came across a large gang of people hunting with dogs and torches, two people were arrested but one reedbuck had been killed.

The Ngiro-are rangers managed to arrest two people in the Lemai Wedge on the 29th and were then called to use the dogs to follow up on a robbery from a tent at Karen Blixen camp in Mara North. Shakaria, followed the tracks into a local village but was unable to find the person responsible for the robbery.

Revenue and Accounts

Although visitor numbers were down in October (6,431 Non-resident adults against 8,639 in September), we actually collected more money than we did in September. This was largely due to receiving balloon revenue from SkyShip and Transworld.

Repairs and maintenance

We repaired the road to Iltolish Primary for the community, the work took much longer than expected and the road team were there for two weeks.

We patched the main roads and lightly graded the road from Serena.

We completed the new toilet at Purungat.

We renovated the housing at Ngiro-are – replacing ceiling board, painting, replacing two ferro-asbestos rooves with corrugated iron and placing a shelter over two uni-huts.

Report on focus for November

Focus for December 2022

· Hold Board meeting on the 9th;

· Repair the JCB; and

· Continue work on roads.

Work on Collaboration Agreement

· Collect uniforms for 630 rangers;

· Hold launch on the 7th for new uniforms, firearms and vehicles;

· Complete work at Osero Sopia;

· Continue road works;

· Complete radio network.