Mara Triangle Animals on Brink of Disaster
Welcome back!
Since January 2008, post election violence in Kenya has caused tourism to collapse for Kenya’s Mara Triangle — the gateway to the Masai Mara for animals and for poachers — thus ending the only revenue for the nature reserve to save its wildlife from extinction and provide a safe haven. The non-profit Mara Conservancy was entirely dependent upon park entrance fees paid by visitors to manage the Mara Triangle, and since the New Year they have suffered severe cutbacks in critical park operations.
Park operations will have to be stopped entirely without this source of revenue, leaving the Mara Triangle open to mass poaching. There is currently only a matter of a few days left of funding until visitors return once again.
The park is bordered by the Siria or Oloololo escarpment to the west which is home to large carnivores such as leopards. Beyond the escarpment, all the area falls under the ownership of the Maasai people, and holds many different species of wildlife. Due to the population increase, they have been moving much closer to the escarpment with their herds of cattle rendering the forestland more accessible to zebras, elands and topis, which are a preferred prey to lions in the absence of wildebeests in Mara.
Some of the other animals which can be seen in and around this 700 square mile conservation area include elephants, black rhinos, buffalos, cheetah, zebras, and gazelle. Hippos and crocodiles abound in the muddy brown waters of the rivers which traverse this Reserve.
Mass Poaching
In early March, a local Masai was stopped by rangers from killing a lion who had attacked his cattle twice in 1 week. Locals are typically compensated by the Mara Conservancy to prevent revenge killings, but the lack of funding no longer makes this possible.
Cattle rustlers have made their escape through the Mara Triangle due to cuts in electricity with no power for 11 hours out of every 24. Therefore, communications are down between the main station and both patrol teams, making it impossible for a successful ambush to be put in place, as well as placing rangers out on patrol at an unnecessary higher risk.
Last month rangers caught 10 men, 6 of whom were hunting hippos. This is also the season that poachers hunt Thomson gazelles at night, but the Mara Conservancy no longer has the funding to carry out night patrols to catch these and other poachers.
On February 16 2008, Onyango Omollo — a notorious poacher who had been dodging arrest since 2002 — was apprehended and led the Rangers to where he kept sun dried meat atop a tree, and wire snares in an Aardvark burrow.
Poachers were arrested on February 25th and 29th 2008, found carrying heavy loads of dried hippo meat and were handed over to the Tanzanians.
Water levels for the Mara River have been disturbingly low — the hippos are unable to move around freely, confined to the river directly underneath the bank, making them easy targets for poachers with spears. The poachers attach the spear to a length of rope, throw the spear into a hippo, and then pull out and repeat until the animal is dead.
“I pray with each day that we will stay in a position to protect these animals from poachers entering the Mara.” says Simon Kimanjoi, from the Mara Conservancy.
“Traditionally the Masai people are pastoralists and it is not in our culture to eat bush meat. This is what has kept the Masai Mara a unique place in Kenya with a richness of wildlife.” Kimanjoi ads. “However, there are still many tribes around the Mara who like to hunt for game, and these people pose a constant threat to the Mara with the majority of these hunters coming in from Tanzania and west of the park.”
The Mara Triangle is not only the gateway for animals passing through from Serengeti to the Mara, but also the main entry point for poachers. Once this defense is down the whole of the Masai Mara — not just the Mara Triangle — will be vulnerable to poachers.
“We are now at the onset of the long rains here at Masai Mara and it is the season where Thomson gazelles are mostly hunted at night using powerful torches and trained dogs. So we appeal for your support to encounter this problem.” says Kimanjoi.
From March through May, this part of the Mara receives long heavy rainfall which becomes flooded and waterlogged. Zebras, elands, topis, impalas and gazelles move to higher drier areas in and outside the park. The lions having nothing to hunt in the park look outside the Reserve for easier prey in the local cattle.
They stalk and kill cows in pastures during the day and break into cattle enclosures at night, resulting in heavy losses — many cattle break out and are killed by hyenas who accompany the lions when hunting.
Two years ago Mara Conservancy — which is charged with the responsibility of managing the Mara Triangle — had put in place a practical strategy to reduce Human / Wildlife conflicts by agreeing upon the payments for cattle loss from money that was allocated from the gate entry fees. Unfortunately this source of funding has now become scarce due to the mass safari cancellations following the post election violence, thus making it difficult for the conservancy to fulfill its obligations to communities.
“We are afraid that most of the community members will not tolerate to see their cattle killed by lions and, not compensated and one week ago, lions attacked a herd of cattle along the park’s boundary and killed one cow.” said Simon Kimanjoi. “The Maasai revenged and killed one lion.”
“We can not afford to see this happen to our recovering populations, and we had managed to convince our neighbors to shun away from the cultural lion hunting by young morans.”
The lion population in the Triangle was more than 80 individuals in the 90′s, but in just a few years the population had been halved to around 40 individuals. Snaring was a major issue, with many lions caught and killed in wire snares meant for other animals. More importantly, lions were also being hunted by the local Masai.
For the first 1 1/2 years that the Conservancy was in place, there was not one single surviving cub. By 2006 the lion population had increased to more than 60 individuals over the age of one.
When the Mara Conservancy began in 2001, the lion population was so fragmented that there were no strong prides that could provide support to young cubs. Local support for the protection of lions came about when the Conservancy began returning stolen cattle to the Masai. Cattle rustlers would regularly enter Kenya through the Triangle, and then go up the escarpment to the local villages and steal great numbers of cattle.
“It was understood that we could either use all of our resources protecting the lions from the Masai, or we could work with the Masai in helping to stop cattle rustlers, and in return they would also help with lion protection.” says Kimanjoi.
Cheetahs live mainly on gazelles and other medium size antelopes, and can end up being caught by the dangerous silent poachers’ weapons. They typically live along the areas supporting the antelope which are mainly targeted by poachers, who prefer game meat to serve their domestic and financial needs.
Wire snares are the 2nd most dangerous weapon to firearms, currently causing mass deaths to Africa’s precious wildlife. The damaged caused by these rusty strings of wire is evident from cut elephant trunks to broken legs of antelopes.
A wire snare inflicted a bad wound on this cheetah’s throat which was removed with pliers. After cleaning, the vet applied medicines and injections to enhance quick healing. The young cheetah is now healed fully, strong and hunting by herself.
Cattle Rustlers
Around 2am on March 3 2008, ranger Jackson Singai received a radio message from community scouts that cattle had been stolen on the escarpment overlooking the Mara Triangle. They were informed that around 25 cattle had been stolen by a group of about 20 armed men who fired shots at the local community to keep them away, and took the cattle down the escarpment into the Mara Triangle, heading south towards Serengeti.
The rangers quickly found and followed the tracks of the rustlers in the Serengeti, sighting them far off in the distance. But by the time they had caught up with the rustlers, they had already left the confines of the park, and Tanzanian law forbids rangers from following cattle rustlers and poachers beyond park borders.
Rangers discovered a poachers’ camp in Kisumu Ndogo on March 10 2008 where it had been more than a year since any had been seen, and rangers now have another area of the park which must always be patrolled.
Obstacles
Additional obstacles rangers face include power outages while out on patrol, as electricity goes off between the hours of midnight and 4am, which means the control radio is out. Rangers only have use of a handset which doesn’t have as much reach as the control radio, placing some rangers in complete isolation should they require assistance.
Low funding has induced numerous cutbacks. Electricity also goes off between the hours of 9am till midday, and again from 2pm till 6pm. This means that 11 hours out of every 24, the main radio station at Serena is unable to operate at its proper capacity.
Before financial crisis struck the Conservancy, they were able to compensate local people soon after a kill. This stopped local Masai from revenge killing the lions, however with their current financial situation this is no longer possible.
When compensation was in place, the local Masai would not go after the lions, but now that they know it’s no longer possible they’re looking for other ways to protect their cattle, and killing the lion is now the only option.
You Can Help
You can help by making a donation towards cattle compensation by going to the Mara Triangle website. Give an amount and leave a comment either when you make your payment, or in the comments section below to specify if you prefer to make your donation for Cattle Compensation or even electricity. 100% of your donation — minus only small bank fees — will go directly to your choice.
The Mara Conservancy is appealing to all Well Wishers to support this project to the survival of the larger cats in the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem. Your donation as an individual or organization will enable the Masai -Mara [Mara-Triangle] to remain what it is today, and be here for future generations
A collapse in revenue for management of the Mara Triangle, and the amount of critical work they do such as de-snaring and anti-poaching patrols has already been reduced.
With the recent spate of poachers caught by rangers, it seems that during this time of political instability, it is vital now more than ever to continue park operations of anti-poaching and de-snaring patrols. In order to protect this important ecosystem we urge anyone to donate, and please tell friends about their plea.
What happens now will have long-term consequences. This is not strictly a ‘Kenya problem’ — if the wildlife on the Mara is threatened, we all face loss. Our world is an ecosystem — a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment, and when wildlife is lost, we all suffer.
Hippos in Mara River
Pride of Lions Feasting on Hippo
Visit the Mara Triangle website to learn more, or contact them by email. All photos property of Masai Mara Triangle.
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Thank you so much Deborah for supporting our campaign to help save the Mara. It is greatly appreciated.
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It was my pleasure, Will. I hope that this creates awareness and possibly some funding to help the situation as much as possible.
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Thank God there are people who are willing to help. Someday, when my age comes, when I work and be paid, Ill have no hesitation on donating to conservation parks.
What I love about blogs is that they spark an idea in my brain. When that occurs, I feel as I require to comment with the hope it might be interesting to some people. Because you will find lots of blogs and forums with numerous points of view, they question your comprehension. It is at these moments when you have valuable insignt other people might not have had, together with the blogger him/herself. I find myself coming back to to your writings only simply because you’ve a number of really good insights and also you’ve been at this a really long time, that is very inspiring and tells me you understand your stuff. Keep triggering imagination in others!