I came out here towards the end of January and have been busy with finalising all the student selections and getting them off to school. A lot of interesting things have happened up here in Samburu. Please read on…
Students – Nine (9) kids went off to school, and 2 primary kids – Litus and Samuel are finally in school (These are the boys that were attacked by an elephant in the Samburu National Reserve). Litus emerged from looking after his mbuzis (goats) and was very excited to finally go to school. (Samuel is in Standard 3 and Litus in standard 5.) Our high school students are progressing very well in their new schools and I have received very good reviews already about most of them!
Donor visit – One of our scholarship donors, Liz Rigali came to Samburu on the 22nd of February. She stayed with us for 10 days and we had a good time. She spent time with Daniel in the field and also with me and this gave her a real insight of the work she is helping support. Since here donations are earmarked for the scholarship programme, we too her to Archers where we visited some of the schools and was also very lucky to take part in the Picasso operation .
Elephants – The elephants have not been in the reserves at all over the past few months. The only two families around are the American Indians and the Poetics. Royals were seen a few times, but they too disappeared up North. It seems to be raining all around us, but hardly any rain in the reserves. In fact, Buffalo Springs has had more rain than Samburu.
An interesting observation about the elephants – the only two families around – the American Indians look in very poor condition, very skinny, etc. However, the Poetics, although being resident as well, seem to be the exact opposite! They seem to have not been affected by the drought at all.
Picasso was darted on the 28th of February, out near Kipsing. He had been seen the previous day having difficulties moving and also appeared to have very bad diarrhoea. After darting, it appeared that in fact, he had a lot of blood all over his legs, from what appeared to be from a burst tail vein. The KWS vets said that the blood was not internal, but from the vein itself. He was treated with antibiotics and after recovering, walked away calmly. Sadly, a almost a week after he was darted and treated, we learnt that he had succumbed and died. This was really tragic. We are awaiting the post mortem results from the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Wild dogs – I saw them in the reserve a couple of weeks back and they most likely are Namunyak wild dogs. They tried to kill an impala and also two of them were mating. (Surprisingly, not many people seem to like wild dogs, which is a shame and I think that more needs to be known about them for people to understand that they are endangered, etc.)
Cheetahs – seem to be doing ok. Whilst I was driving back with Liz Rigali one evening, we saw a young female cheetah 50 metres away from camp. She was a bit nervous and acted as if she was being chased by something. Anyway, she walked right in front of us and went behind the camp, near Iain’s car. A couple of days ago, whilst out on the main road, I saw 3 cheetahs (mother and cubs) kill and eat an impala. It was a great sight to watch the cubs kill and feed, whilst the mother watched and kept a look out for lions. No one disturbed the cheetahs which is so rare these days with the numbers of tourists about the place.
Other wildlife – Due to the severe drought, most animals in the reserves are struggling and even dying. Everything is out looking for food – the monkeys, the squirrels, the mongoose, horn bills, dik dik everything. At least Uaso River is flowing now, but the rains have to start soon. Impala and waterbuck are not doing well at all. Oryx, gerenuk and lions seem to be the only animals doing well. The lions have stayed in their pride for many months now and they have started hammering the larger animals – buffalo, giraffe and yes, Grevy zebra too.