Category: Elephants, Snares | Date: Jul 06 2008 | By: Kimojino

Late Friday afternoon rangers from Ngiro-are outpost reported that they had seen a young, bull elephant with a snare caught around his right, hind leg. KWS were called on Saturday morning and were fortunately in the area and so were able to come to the Triangle immediately.

Dominic from KWS treats elephant.

It was also fortunate that the wire snare had not yet cut through to the bone, just the outside tissue.

Wire Snare caught around hind leg. 

The elephant was darted at 10:30 am and fell down at 10:34. The procedure was started at 10:35 and then by 10:40 the snare was removed. The elephant was given an injection to wake up and was standing by 10:45.

10:45. Elephant wakes after procedure.

A very impressive operation carried out by KWS, and we commend them for such an excellent job. Once the elephant woke he was even walking without a limp.

Ngiro-are rangers yesterday reported seeing the bull elephant at 4pm and said that his condition was good and he was still walking fine. They will continue to check on his progress.

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Category: Poachers, Wildebeest | Date: Jul 05 2008 | By: William

The six poachers and Warden Kortom

Warden Kortom is next to me. He and his men have just come back from patrol with six poachers. Here is his report on the happenings:

Early in the morning, at around 6:30am rangers from Serena, Ngiro-are and Mara Bridge went to patrol Balangoga near Sunni Lugga where the many wildebeest have been passing and not far from where rangers caught the three poachers yesterday.

Rangers patrolled the area for two and a half hours, and came across three wire snares, one wildebeest, still alive, caught by a snare, and one already dead, and the third around the tree, without an animal. We also came across a huge male elephant, that we think died 3-4 days ago but it looks like natural causes. We called the Tanzanian rangers to come and remove the ivory tusks. 

We then caught six poachers near Balangoga river with 15 wire snares. They had arrived in the morning today, after travelling the whole night, and so it is fortunate we caught them early as not one animal had yet been snared by the men.  The men were carrying bhangi, one spear, one sword, three bows with three poisoned arrows, and cooking utensils. The men will shortly be taken to Tanzania for prosecution by the courts there.

10 responses so far

Category: Wildebeest | Date: Jun 30 2008 | By: William

For some reason our web chap in Nairobi isn’t updating the Mara Conservancy website with the monthly reports from the man in charge; the Boss.

He’s very big on transparency and within the report you will find all the news that has happened over the month; including wildlife, staff, tourism and, revenue and accounts. To see what exactly, click here for May’s Report.

It’s the type of stuff that most organisations try to hide, but instead the Conservancy have been sending the report out each month to all lodges and camps in around the Mara Triangle, including KATO (Kenya Association of Tour Operators), and other Organisations and NGOs who are involved with the work of the Conservancy, as well as putting it up on our website.

Although this hasn’t been happening of late, and I’m not able to post Word files into this here blog, and so instead we can send them to you by email. Just put your email address in the box on the right hand side, which has been suitably titled: Receive our Chief Executive’s Monthly Report.

Now for some reason the widget doesn’t work properly but it does give me a copy of your email address behind the scenes, to which I can send you the report.

UPDATE - The plugin has completely stopped working now and it will no longer store email addresses. Leave a comment below and I’ll instead send it to your email address which will be stored behind the scenes with your comment.

Just one more thing. Latest estimate is that the wildebeests will be arriving within the next two or three days. Actually, a ranger from Mara Bridge has just told me maybe today. Be ready for lots of brilliant photos from Kimojino, and probably video too.

A lot of interesting comments on Friday’s post - I’ll let you know when the BBC get back to me. 

4 responses so far

Category: Hippos, Poachers | Date: Jun 18 2008 | By: Kimojino

Rangers Nelson, Bett & Kimanjoi with dried hippo meat.

Last Sunday rangers from Serena Station were patrolling the border area with Serengeti when they received a radio call that a man had been spotted in the bushes on the Narok side of Mara River.

Immediately they were sent to the area and joined Ngiro-are and Mara Bridge Patrol Teams, as well as members of the GSU who had spotted the man and radioed our men. The area was searched and rangers quickly found scraps of paper recently discarded as well as some pieces of string.

Evidence of human activity inside the park.

Unfortunately the poachers were nowhere to be found. We searched all the surrounding thickets and along the lugga, but it was difficult to see where they had gone. Rangers did however find a poachers camp with dried hippo meat hanging in a tree.

Hippo meat hanging in a tree.

On Monday, rangers patrolling the Serengeti side near Mara Bridge came across another
poachers camp near Sand River, which had been deserted about 10 days earlier. It was very close to where the poachers camp was found on Sunday, as well as the man that the GSU had spotted. Rangers were able to tell that the poachers had been able to kill two hippos and had left with all of the meat.

It was agreed that although outside the Mara Triangle, this area is now a key area to check for poaching and should be patrolled regularly.

8 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