Saving Stripes

Category: Laikipia | Date: Jan 26 2009 | By: savingstripes

Hi, this is Corinna, Siva’s wife. I’m also an ecologist, though mostly I study boring things like grass — nothing as cute as Grevy’s zebra! I’m going to tell you a bit more about the projects Siva and I are working on, but today I want to step back and talk a little bit about the place where we work and live.

Laikipia is a district in Kenya, but it is also a beautiful high plateau on the flanks of Mount Kenya. Mount Kenya is just a bit shorter than its more famous rival, Kilimanjaro. On clear days we can see the snow on top of Mount Kenya, about sixty kilometers south of where we live. Here’s a picture I took of the mountain at sunrise:

Laikipia is basically a plateau that has formed as the slopes of Mount Kenya have eroded over many millennia. We live at about 1800 m elevation — that’s just over a mile high.  Thanks to the altitude, we don’t get many mosquitoes or other annoyances. Instead, we enjoy the most wonderful climate — sunny, hot days (but not too hot!) and cool nights. It’s a bit dry, but it would be hard to ask for better weather than what we get on an average day here! As in most of Kenya, the rain here falls in two seasons — April and November. The total amount of rainfall, though, is only about 500 mm (20 in), and the timing and amount of rain varies greatly from year to year.

The weather isn’t the only special thing about Laikipia. This region is home to a huge abundance and diversity of wild animals, second only in East Africa to the Serengeti-Mara. Yet, unlike the Serengeti, almost none of the land here is formally protected. Almost all the land is privately owned — mostly by wealthy foreigners or by groups of Maasai families. Most of the properties are managed for livestock production, tourism, or both. It’s quite common, even, to see livestock and wildlife right next to each other.

The challenge that this regions presents is to figure out how wildlife can live side by side with people and their livestock. It is a formidable challenge, but also an exciting one. Most of Africa’s wildlife relies on unprotected lands. Put simply, their future depends on our ability to find creative ways for people and wildlife to coexist.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 17 2009 | By: savingstripes

Hello everybody – and thanks to all of you for your enthusiasm about my project. Unfortunately I misjudged the infrastructure I had available to keep the blog up last year, but now I’m back, it’s a new year, I’ve got the technological issues sorted out, and I’m ready to revive this blog!

We’ve got a busy and exciting year ahead here with the Grevy’s zebra team. I’m going to be putting radio collars on some more zebras, while my collaborators who study lions are going to be putting collars on lions in the same area. This way we can track the movements of zebras and lions at the same time in the same lansdscape. This will let us see how zebras move around to avoid being eaten – or how lions move around to try to catch zebras.

Here’s a picture of a zebra we collared in 2007 with her foal (which was born after the mother was collared):

I have lots of data from the first two years of this project and I’ll be sharing some of what I’ve found so far. In addition to all this research, we’re also getting ready to put out a story book about a young Grevy’s called Stripe. The story book will be printed in Swahili and English and will be distributed widely here in northern Kenya, with the hope of publicizing among people here how rare and special Grevy’s are. Here is a sneak peek at a sample:

These days I’m also working a lot with my wife, Corinna, on two projects relating to land management. Zebras and other wildlife need good habitat to survive and thrive; the question is, how do we manage the land to keep the habitat good? In this part of Kenya, as in lots of places in Africa, wildlife have to share the land with livestock. So understanding the impacts of livestock on the land is critical. Corinna and I are working on setting up a big experiment to test two different cattle management strategies and their impacts on the grass and wildlife. We’re also working on putting together a booklet that will instruct people about how to monitor the health of their land. We want this booklet to work for people all across the Horn of Africa, so to do some background research we’re planning a road trip up to northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia later this year.

We’re excited about all our plans for the next year and excited to share our experiences with you. Corinna and I will both be writing about our work and life here in Kenya. We hope you will send us your questions and comments and keep reading!

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