Rain!
Category: News | Date: Apr 30 2009 | By: savingstripes
Yesterday evening I came home to some exciting news: it had rained! I had watched the storm coming off Mount Kenya in the afternoon and had felt confident it would make it all the way up to the Research Centre, but it never did get there. As I drove home (towards the mountain; home is 12 km south of the Research Centre) I saw that the rain had made it to about 1 km north of home. North of there it was dry as a bone. South of there, the road was fresh, soft, gently muddy — as if I’d entered a different world.
But rain! What a wonderful thing! Within hours, the whole feeling of the place changes — and not just the squelchy feeling of mud under your feet! There is something truly magical about the first proper rain of the season. The flying termites and flying ants come out in droves, setting off to try to start new colonies. They bumble awkwardly through the sky, as if drunk off the rain itself. The birds go crazy, stuffing their hungry mouths with bumbling bugs until twilight. The earth emits a rich, damp smell. You can almost feel the grass starting to grow (within days it will be green). And in the morning — dew! — wet feet on the morning dog walk — things I had forgotten about in the months of dry.
Today a small shower followed up on yesterday, and we can only hope that this heralds the start of the rainy season (a month late, but better than never).
-Corinna
How to keep track of your “pet cat”
Category: Lions | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: savingstripes
Hi everyone, greetings from the US. It’s been a busy month – lots of meetings in lots of different places. I’m looking forward to being back in Kenya two weeks!
Just a few days before I left Kenya, I went with our friend and colleague, Alayne, to help capture a lion. Alayne is trying to understand what makes some lions – but not others – become livestock killers. Important work, since most livestock killers get killed themselves! Alayne and I are also working together to try to understand how lions and Grevy’s zebra – two endangered species – can live together (as zebras tried to avoid being eaten and lions try to eat them!). One of the things we’re doing is putting GPS collars on lions and zebras in the same area. This will help us to see how they use the land in relation to one another.
On this particular day, we were looking for a pride of lions on a ranch in northwestern Laikipia. The lions on this ranch are quite comfortable with people, so we were able to drive right up to them (with a little help from the ranch manager, who knows where the pride usually hangs out).
Once Alayne figured out which lioness she wanted to put the collar on (the one on the left), we had to get close enough for her to shoot the dart gun. Better to spend time getting a good shot, rather than waste valuable drugs and medication in a feeble attempt. Getting a good shot means getting into position so the dart hits a big muscle group on the animal, like its shoulder or rump. We had to maneuver the car within a few meters of the animal! Being so close to a big cat brings on some complex emotions. It’s cliché, I know but – on the one hand, they look tame and cute and just like familiar oversize kittens – and on the other, you always remember the strength and power lurking underneath that cute exterior.
Alayne is a good shot – as the pink fluff on the end of the dart showed us – and within a few minutes the lioness was out cold.
This was a good opportunity to inspect and marvel at the size and strength of this beautiful creature up close… She was a youngish female, not that big. Probably, pregnant. How do you tell? By putting your hands on her belly and feeling for little lions hidden inside, of course… It’s pretty surreal to get the chance to examine so closely an otherwise mythical and feared predator.
Up close, most animals show many signs of slight injuries, usually cuts and scars. But this lion appeared to be in fine shape, with a nice lush coat. Truly a magnificent creature.
After we’d finished admiring her, it was time to get to work. Alayne did a number of things while the lion was down, in addition to putting the collar on. First, she collected a blood sample (for DNA and disease analyses). Then she gave the lion a unique and permanent ID by notching her ears. This is so we can recognize her even if the collar falls off. Finally, Alayne gave her some antibiotic, just to be sure she didn’t get any infection from the blood sample or ear notching. Then with a final pat Alayne gave the lion the reverser drug to wake her up.
Wearing her new necklace, the lioness rose out of the grass, and soon she joined the rest of her pride, ready to resume a hard day’s work sitting under a tree in the shade. She may not be setting the trend in lion fashion, but thanks to that new necklace, we’ll be able to keep track of her and her friends (better not tell them!).
-Siva
Lions kill camels
Category: Lions | Date: Apr 20 2009 | By: savingstripes
Seventeen lions killed two camels last night on Mpala — wow!! Camels are big — that’s a lot of meat, even for seventeen lions! That’s not very good news for the ranch manager — or for the lions, if they continue to kill livestock.
In other sad lion news, a lion was recently found dead on Mpala, caught in an illegal snare. Unfortunately snares have been proliferating lately. It is hard to blame hungry people for turning to game hunting in a time of drought — but it’s not legal and it makes me sad to think of the also-hungry wildlife being poached to death.
-Corinna
Hussein’s wedding
Category: News | Date: Apr 19 2009 | By: savingstripes
Congratulations to Hussein and his new wife, Mariam! Hussein is Siva’s field assistant here at the Mpala Research Centre — an important part of the project and the community at Mpala!
The wedding was held on a neighboring ranch, Ol Jogi, where Hussein’s parents live. About half the guests had come from Mpala. The bride and groom made a beautiful couple!
The wedding reception was an interesting mix of cultures. Hussein and his wife are Burgi, one of the Muslim tribes from northeastern Kenya. But many of the people who live in this area are Maasai (from this region) or Turkana (from northwestern Kenya). The wedding party — the ladies beautiful with their henna-ed hands — were surrounded by dancing Maasai and Turkana.
It was a lovely day, and we wish Hussein and Mariam a long and happy life together!
-Corinna
Back on track
Category: News | Date: Apr 16 2009 | By: savingstripes
Another week has slipped past here in dusty Laikipia. Still no sign of rain – the clouds gather in the afternoon but veer off to the west. Elsewhere in Kenya it is raining, but here it remains a “blue hole”! Sadly, the famine worsens for the rural poor.
Our internet has improved marginally – word is that the earthquake in Italy affected the service base there. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I have had very little internet connection until today!
Yesterday I was supposed to go track down a zebra on Siva’s behalf. I got a call last week from a neighboring rancher that he had seen a zebra with a collar on it. Siva has one collared zebra left, and he hasn’t seen her in a very long time. I had planned to go take a look to see if the zebra that had turned up was wearing one of Siva’s collars or not. But late Tuesday night the rancher called again to say that nobody had seen the zebra in some days and it would probably be a waste of time to come looking. Is she the missing zebra, or is she a zebra somebody else put a collar on? (some researchers working further north have a handful of collared zebras). The mystery remains, for now…
More from me soon, now that the internet seems to be working again.
-Corinna
Still dry
Category: News | Date: Apr 10 2009 | By: savingstripes
Friday leading into the long Easter weekend here… Internet still having problems, and it’s still dry as a bone. On Monday morning it looked really promising – dark clouds and even a little rain shower. But by midday the sun was shining and any signs of rain had evaporated.
At least we have water in the rivers! Compare this to last week:
I’m working at home these few days and puppy-sitting for Pedro, our friend Alayne and Josep’s four month-old ridgeback. Pedro is all legs and ears!
Arcas is thrilled to have a little buddy to play with. And nap with…
These days I only ever see the squirrels early in the morning or in the evening, when they come to eat the food I put out. Sometimes they bring along their new friends. Here’s one of the babies with an adult male ocher bush squirrel – you can see that the babies are almost fully grown now!
Also, the way their tails are bushing out is quite interesting – they’re thickening with adult fur from the base and moving up the tail. And just in time; their baby tails are starting to look pretty ratty!
Wishing you all a good weekend,
Corinna
Black and white and red
Category: Predators, Uncategorized | Date: Apr 06 2009 | By: savingstripes
I happened upon this cartoon the other day, and it seemed appropriate:
Okay, so zebras might not be the Einsteins of the animal world, but they do know how to run away from lions! The last few weeks we’ve been watching a territorial male Grevy’s whom we often see on our drive home. One day he appeared with a huge gash in his belly (caused by a lion?). He was moving pretty slowly and stiffly. The next time we saw him, the wound was dripping pus. We thought he was a goner, but I’ve seen him more recently and he’s looking a lot better. Sometimes it’s amazing how these animals can survive! See this photo I took last year of a female with an old wound – almost definitely from a big predator:
Others, of course, aren’t so lucky. In fact, one theory is that lions are a major cause of Grevy’s decline. Over the last few decades, lion populations have risen in this region. Ranches used to think of lions as a threat to their cattle so they actively hunted them. Now people tend to want lions on their land, since tourists like to see big cats. (Of course the lions still take the odd cow, and ranchers still take the odd lion…). But does the rise in the lion population spell disaster for Grevy’s? I’ll let Siva comment more on that!
-Corinna
Water!
Category: News, Uncategorized | Date: Apr 04 2009 | By: savingstripes
Hi everybody,
Apologies for the silence – our internet has been down pretty much the whole week because it’s been snowing in Italy. Yep. When the weather is foul in Turin, something goes wrong with the satellite connection, and we here in rural Kenya lose contact with the outer world!
I’ve had a post ready to put up all week – which I’ll post soon – but meantime, some good news: the river started flowing! This is the Nanyuki River, the one that passes by our house. Earlier in the week it rained on Mount Kenya, the source of the Nanyuki River. Since Wednesday we’ve been hearing rumors that it’s flowing upstream; by Thursday it had reached the adjacent ranch; and by yesterday afternoon a healthy stream of clear, cold water was burbling past the house. Ah, the wonderful sound of rushing water!
Now, we are just waiting for rain. Dark clouds on many afternoons, but still no rain. We wait. It’s something you learn to be good at, here.
-Corinna
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