Category: Lodges & Camps, Tourists | Date: Jun 13 2008 | By: Kimojino

It is such a beautiful day today in the Mara. These last few days it has been overcast and we have been feeling the cold, but this morning the sun eventually broke free and from then until now the day has been too beautiful.

Masai ostriches in the morning sun.

I went out for a final drive this evening to monitor the few tour drivers that are out and about. I caught a couple of drivers who were too close to the lions, about 5 metres away from where they were lying and so I told them that they need to keep the full 25 metres distance between them and the animals. It was good to see that the resident drivers were all respectful of this distance when they approached the lions.

I was rather annoyed however when later on in Olpunyata I saw this.

Tour Driver ignores closed road. 

Annoyed not only because the road is clearly closed, but because I recognise the tyre tracks and know that this is a resident driver.

The track leads to a very fragile area next to the river, and we must ensure all that we can to protect it from overuse.  I wish that the tourists in the car had spoken up when they saw this as they too must have known this was wrong.

Closed road leading to the fragile river area. 

Today with William Deed we have worked out how we will distribute the digital cameras that you kindly donated. We will post more about this tomorrow.

Please also feel free to receive the latest blog posts from the Mara Triangle to your email inbox by clicking here. It takes just two seconds, and you’ll always stay up to date and feel part of this beautiful land. Karibu!

4 responses so far

Category: Tourists | Date: Jun 12 2008 | By: Kimojino

Ledama Sogirian and Nashon Lekumok in Tango one.

Many people who come here do not understand the gravity of the situation that we are facing, and often make complaints about the state of the roads. We are trying our best. We have pushed contractors to complete the grading of a government funded road right across the park, from Mara Bridge to Oloololo Gate, and we also have opened up a new road from near Serena Hotel to the Mara River, where the zebras are currently crossing.

In conjunction with the main roads, we also have up to 500km of grass tracks to maintain so that visitors are able to tour the park extensively with the minimum of damage to the ecosystem. Each year we sometimes close the less popular of these tracks and open up new ones, often suggested by resident drivers here in the Mara. The Mara Triangle may be empty right now, but when the tourists do come in a few weeks time we have to make sure that the Triangle is ready to receive their numbers.

Lekumok inspecting the route ahead of Tango One 

We are designing these tracks to take people to where they can view animals easily and also trying to take away pressure from other highly visited areas of the Triangle. For example we are trying to take away the pressure from the river zone to other areas which are not so fragile.

Tango One mowing the grass. 

In the past, we have said that we do allow off-road driving for visitors who want to leave the tracks to see the predators, but we have found that many people take advantage of this and off-road for many many kilometres. So now we have had to change the wording of our rules, and say that all off-road driving is banned, and you are only able to leave the tracks if you want to see animals of interest, like lions, cheetahs, leopards or rhinos. After which you must return to the track immediately.

It is difficult because we want people to have the best experience when they come here, but not at the cost of damaging the environment. We hope that this change in wording will influence tourists behaviour, and ensure responsible game driving.

Newly Opened Game Viewing Track. 

3 responses so far

Category: Cattle Rustlers, Sponsor a Ranger | Date: Jun 09 2008 | By: Kimojino

Leyian and his wife, Naponari

Yesterday morning, I went with a group of rangers from Serena, Oloololo and Mara Bridge to visit Ranger Johnson Leyian at his home.

Ranger Leyian was shot twice at the end of April when chasing cattle rustlers who had stolen cattle from the local communities up on the escarpment. His injuries were very serious with Doctors saying that he arrived at Aga Khan hospital, Nairobi, just in time.

He is very well and is able to walk, but there is a small limp that is a recent development over the last three days, and he has had some pain appearing in his lower abdomen. We know that he will consult with the Doctor again today.

Leyian and fellow rangers and workers from the Conservancy.

Leyian’s family were so happy to see us, despite already the many visitors that were there. Members of the local church were there to pray for Leyian as well as the people from many of the surrounding villages.

We all pray that Leyian will make a full recovery.

Please help if you can with some of our outstanding bills & Air Ambulance charges, or consider if you can, sponsoring one of our rangers.

No responses yet

Category: Lodges & Camps, Tourists | Date: Jun 07 2008 | By: Kimojino

Hallo everyone.

Sorry for the silence these last couple of days, but I am pleased to say that we have been doing a two day workshop with the resident tour drivers in and around the Mara Triangle. The workshop was organised by the UK Travel Foundation and was chaired by Dr Cheryl Mvula (read more about her excellent work here) and Manny Mvula.

We would also like to thank Olonana Camp for hosting the event on Friday, and thank you to Kichwa Tembo Camp for hosting the event today.

Responsible Guiding Workshop at Olonana

We would also like to thank the following camps for sending their drivers to the workshop: Mara Balloon Safaris, Little Governors Camp, Main Governors Camp, Mpata Safari Camp, Transworld Balloons, Mara Siria and Kichwa Tembo (CCAfrica).

One of the main points to come out of the workshop was that guides should learn more about the wildlife inside the Mara, and not just focus on showing visitors the ‘Big Five’. This way their guests can have an interesting and entertaining game drive no matter what animals they see, which will also relieve some of the pressure from the main predators and stop tour drivers from crowding them.

Another main point that everyone agreed on was that drivers needed to be more confident when dealing with difficult guests, who try to insist that drivers break park rules by going too close to the animals.

Responsible Guiding Workshop at Kichwa Tembo

We also collectively agreed that stricter rules needed to be applied to the river crossings during the great migration. Both the Mara Conservancy and resident tour drivers agreed that there needed to be a limited length of time that drivers are allowed to stay at the crossing (only for one crossing), and that the number of vehicles needed to be limited further (depending on the crossing site).

Resident drivers also asked the Mara Conservancy to be stricter with the park rules and to punish drivers who broke them. They said that if we were too lenient then drivers would only keep on breaking the rules.

9 responses so far

Category: Cattle Compensation, Hyenas, Lions, Maasai Community, Snares | Date: Jun 05 2008 | By: Kimojino

Ranger Wilson Naitoi is here at Serena Station this morning, and informs us that the resident leopard near Kipas Village (Enkereri), has been creating a lot of problems. On the 3rd June, the leopard attacked a mother goat at Olkurruk, and you can see in the picture below the injury sustained to the neck. The bones were broken, and the wind pipe was also torn so that she could only breathe through her neck. Eventually she died by herself, once she was dead the Maasai found that she had twins inside.

Goat with puncture wound in neck.

On the same day the leopard killed two more goats at Kipas Village. It was in the daytime when the boys were grazing the goats. The leopard first killed one and then another, after which the boys tried to scare him away but he did not want to go. The boys wanted to keep the goats as evidence so that we could take the photographs, but the leopard himself wanted to fight the boys for one of the goats. The boys kept up their shouting and screaming and so the other boys from the village came and helped chase the leopard away.

Two goats dead at Kipas Village

It would have been very easy for this group of boys to kill the leopard, but thankfully they did not. They are however extremely agitated as the cases of goats killed is increasing. One of these goats killed at Kipas village had a young kid of only 1 week old. There is no chance that this young one will survive.

We are still as of yet unable to recommence the cattle compensation scheme as we have very little money ourselves. We hope that tourism will return in these coming weeks, but in the time being we still have to do what we can to fund raise to continue with our basic park operations, such as the anti-poaching and de-snaring patrols.

On Tuesday I reported that we had found a hyaena with a snare around his neck, well I am sad to say that yesterday we found that the hyaena had died. We know that now the poachers are still buying their time for when the migration returns in full force, and so we must be ready and have the resources to prevent the incredible damage that they are able to cause.

Hyaena dead from snare.

One final interesting thing that I would like to share with you all is the video of the two male lions fighting yesterday near Egyptian Goose. I first saw a mating pair of lions just a short distance away from the road, and drove up to take a closer look. When I arrived the female left the male, and it looked like she wanted to hunt. A short time later the male also arose but left in the opposite direction, roaring as he walked.

I continued on my journey to Serena Station, and just a couple of minutes away I saw another mating pair of lions next to the road. When I stopped the car to take a photo I could hear the lone male now making his way towards where we all were. I waited for about twenty minutes and then he arrived. Click here to watch what happened next.

Male Lions Fighting

As you all know, the connection here isn’t always good and we don’t always have electricity and so it is sometimes easier for me to update via twitter. Add me as a friend to stay up to date on all the happenings here. Please also feel free to subscribe to the latest blog posts by email, click here - it takes just two seconds to sign up.

And finally, please also see if you are able to make a donation today. We hope that these are the last few weeks that we have to ask for money as the tourists should hopefully soon arrive. But right now, today, I have just visited the lodge nextdoor and they had only one tourist arrival.

So you can see we still need to raise all that we can, and we are incredibly thankful for all your support so far. It is only by your support we have managed to make it through these difficult months.

Thank you so much to everyone, from everybody here at the Mara Conservancy

5 responses so far