Yesterday afternoon cattle rustlers entered Kenya and stole 24 cattle and 2 donkeys from the communities living up on the escarpment. Our rangers were alerted at around 3pm and joined Tanzanian rangers and the Kenyan Anti-Stock Theft Unit in pursuit of the rustlers.

A battle ensued for more than one hour, with sporadic gunfire between both sides. During one of these bursts of fire our Ranger Johnson Leyian was shot in both legs. He suffered heavy bleeding and was immediately taken to the main station here at Mara Serena. It was not possible to arrest the bleeding and surgery was also needed, so he was airlifted by African Air Rescue to the Aga Khan hospital in Nairobi. On arrival he was given four pints of blood.

Ranger Johnson Leyian at Ngiro-are Outpost

It was extremely bold of the rustlers to attack in broad daylight. Normally these thefts are attempted at night, a week either side of the full moon. Before the financial crisis hit the Conservancy, we would often lay night ambushes for these rustlers but we no longer have the funds to put these in place.

Our reduced visibility in the area may have been an incentive for the rustlers with all our night patrols halted since January, along with a massive reduction in joint day patrols of the area with Tanzanian rangers.

Also, on March 3rd rustlers attacked at night and managed to escape with cattle from the local community. It was one of only a handful of successful thefts since the start of the Mara Conservancy in 2001, and occurred at a time when the electricity is off at the main station - due to cutbacks - this made it extremely difficult to coordinate the rangers and offer further assistance, as they were only able to use radio handsets which were out of range.

We believe that a combination of reduced visibility in the area, and the successful theft in the beginning of March, emboldened the rustlers and led to yesterday’s attack in broad daylight.

Rangers and Hippo poachers on 9th April; Ranger Leyian in the centre.

Today, Ranger Leyian’s condition is stable and he is expected to make a full recovery. Our insurance will cover the costs of medical treatment but not the costs of the emergency flight, which will be at around 420,000 Kenyan Shillings (roughly US $7,000).

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I spent the beginning of this week at Saruni’s home, a hand charge here at the Conservancy. His home is up on the escarpment about 6km from Oloololo Gate, and the border of the park.

The Escarpment in the background.

The escarpment makes up the third border of the park, running along the west, with the other two borders being the Mara River and the Kenya/Tanzania border.

I stayed two nights at Saruni’s and both nights there were attempts from a leopard to break into his boma.

Saruni in front of his cows and his home.

The first alarm you hear is the growl of the dog, followed by the rumbling of 50 cattle running from one side of the boma to the other, the bells around the necks now swinging madly. Before the dog was fully barking, Saruni was out of the house and chasing the leopard away, armed only with a torch and a stick.

There is a constant need to be alert, not only against lions and leopards, but on the first night six hyenas also tried to break into the boma where the goats are kept.

Putting the animals to bed.

Unlike many Maasai on the escarpment, Saruni has another income to his household coming from the work he does for the Conservancy. However, since January he has had five sheep killed - 4 by a leopard and 1 by hyenas - along with 3 cows killed - 2 heifers by leopards, and a pregnant cow was killed by a lion. In terms of money this is more than 40,000 Kenyan Shillings (US $645), but to give you a better idea of the value of this loss, for Saruni this is the equivalent to 7 months salary.

On Tuesday I stopped by at Enkereri to give them a print out of the article by Reuters, and despite all the improvements we had seen them make to their bomas on Saturday, a leopard had broken in on Monday evening and killed a goat.

Reuters at Enkereri.

I saw Ranger Kimanjoi on the Wednesday, who had been at home for 10 days. He also lives on the escarpment, about 10km away from Saruni’s home, and he also related a story how only two nights previously, two lionesses had come to his village and killed a cow.

The first reaction from the men was to hunt the lions with their bows and arrows, but Kimanjoi convinced them that the best thing to do would be to just chase them away from the village, which they did for two hours by following the lionesses and shouting.

Lions yesterday in the park, with a warthog kill.

Here are three stories collected in just a couple of days, but the escarpment runs along the park for a good 31 kilometres and is home to hundreds of small villages, each with another story to tell. I’ve only been here a short time, and have only met a few people, but the attachment I’ve seen between the Maasai I’ve met and their cows is so strong that it would be difficult to say that they are not doing their best to defend their cattle against these attacks.

Saruni and one of his cows.

As we’ve already said, at this time of year the conflict between wildlife and the human populations is at its highest, but before, rather than being a major financial loss, the local people were compensated from revenue brought in by tourist visits to the park.

As we are now experiencing, it is not always good to be dependent on tourism, but for so many years the visitors to the Mara had become an incredibly important part of keeping the balance between the wildlife and the human populations.

Since January that balance has gone, and so far the wildlife has survived and it has been the local communities, which includes those who work here at Mara Conservancy, who have had to suffer the consequences.

Saruni’s Grandfather.

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