Up....up...and away!

Internet connectivity in Kenya is not like we have at home, as you can see from the erratic nature of this blog. It’s been a few days, so I thought I’d get everyone up to speed.

We left Mpala Research Centre on the morning of October 28th. It’s about an hour’s drive to the next town, called Nanyuki, where we stopped to get some diesel fuel for our Land Cruiser. After fueling up, we headed back north to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in which the Sweetwater Tented Camps are located. We would be spending the balance of our trip here.

Ol Pejeta is a 90,000 acre wildlife conservancy and cattle ranch. Much of what we have been learning about has focused on conserving wildlife in addition to using the natural resources to raise cattle. As we are learning, the two are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, cattle can be used as a tool to conserve wildlife. (There will be much more on this later, as this has been our primary focus.)

After we were settled and had lunch, we took the Land Cruiser out for a drive to find and view wildlife. Basically, every waking moment that we’re not working or eating, we’re driving around looking for birds and mammals. What do you expect when you have five science geeks in a vehicle cruising around the savanna?

On the morning of the 29th, we met with Carolyn, who works in the ecological monitoring department of Ol Pejeta. She gave us a very informative presentation on the work being done at Ol Pejeta, and introduced to Jospeh Methenge, Ol Pejeta’s cattle operations manager. We learned quite a bit how Ol Pejeta is using cattle to create hotspots for wildlife while maintaining a successful cattle operation. This meeting was very informative, and Joseph took us to several sites where we could see what we’ve learned put into action.

During the evening, we went on a night game drive. It’s safe to say that we’ve been pretty spoiled with our daily game drives since we weren’t getting too excited about the wildlife we were seeing! We did perk up when we saw a white-tailed mongoose, but went nuts when we had our first lion sighting! There are 52 lions in the conservancy, so seeing one can be a rare occurrence.

This morning we met with Anthony King, director of the Laikipia Wildlife Forum, which has its office in a small shack at the Nanyuki airstrip. To say the least, this man was inspirational. He had a simple, yet profound definition of what he thinks conservation is, and was pleased to hear about our work on this trip. We spoke with him for about two hours, then Jim surprised us with a flight in a single-engine plane over the area that we’ve been exploring and learning about for the past week. Our flight was about an hour, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Kirin, our pilot, would ask where we wanted to go as we were in the air. If we wanted to circle above a working boma, we just asked him and he took us there. It was amazing!

Tomorrow, we have a meeting in Nairobi with Peter Ndunda, the GIS technical specialist for the Greenbelt Movement. It should prove to be interesting and will add another piece to our work here.

Until later, Kwaheri!