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Today, the Tsavo National Park, encompassing an area os 8,000 square miles (the size of Michigan State, Israel or Wales) is cut by the main Nairobi - Mombasa road, which links the hinterland of Kenya to the Coast. But, there was a time when this giant Park belonged only to the elephants and other wild animals that inhabited this vast tract of semi-desert. Only the traditional elephant hunters of the Waliangulu tribe ventured into what is now known as the Tsavo National Park, the area being too arid for cultivation, and unsuitable for livestock due to the presence of the tsetse fly which carries trypanosomiasis, deadly to cattle, but to which wild animals are immune. Traditional elephant migration routes between Tsavo West National Park (lying west of the Nairobi/Mombasa railway) and Tsavo East (east of the railway) today are hazardous passages for Tsavo's elephant herds, since they have to pass through settlement and run the gauntlet of snaring and the hostility of agricultural small holdings of the Taita people. Our "Emily" became an orphan when she fell into a disused pit latrine near the Manyani Prison Camp, built by the British in the 1950's to house the then "terrorists" of the Mau Mau rebellion.<<613200554245-pic1.jpg>> At the time, her herd was "streaking", a term that is used today when elephants move rapidly through dangerous areas of human habitation in order to be able to link up with family and friends further afield, bearing in mind that an elephant shares the same span of life as a human (three score years and ten) and that they keep in touch with loved ones through "infrasound" throughout life. Infrasound is low frequency communication beyond the hearing range of the human ear, so, to us, the elephants speak to one another silently and mysteriously. | More about Tsavo National Park | EMILY's detail profile | Foster EMILY Now | |
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The Masai Mara and adjoining Loita plains form the northernmost part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, a l0,000 sq. mile area encompassing the annual movements of its migratory wildebeest. The Serengeti is in Tanzania and the Mara in Kenya. The Mara receives the highest annual rainfall (some 53 inches) with rain falling throughout the year peaking in December, January and April and today provides the dry season refuge for the great Serengeti grazing hordes since the grass here is still plentiful when the Serengeti plains have dried out. Prior to the 1960's only some Serengeti wildebeest spilled over into the Masai Mara in very dry years and most wildebeest found in the Mara belonged to the separate Loita population seasonally moving between the Loita plains in wet months and the lusher Mara during the dry months. The Serengeti wildebeest population peaked at about 1.3 million in the 1960's and 1970's and then began to utilise the Masai Mara as their dry season range. However, the commercial trade in "bushmeat" and an expanding human population is currently taking a very heavy toll of numbers, although the still vast assemblage of ungulates annually moving through the ecosystem remains the greatest wildlife spectacle on earth and is known as "the migration", attracting tourists from all over the world being the last remaining migration of large mammals on earth. When it is wet in the Serengeti the wildebeest herds congregate on the short grass plains of the South- eastern part of the ecosystem to give birth en masse with 80% of the females calving within a few weeks. Early in the dry season, they stream en masse through the longer grass plains and on to the Western Corridor and as their food supply diminishes, they move into the northern Serengeti woodlands spreading out but moving North in response to rainfall and forage, eventually arriving in the Mara in June or July. The "crossings" on the Mara river afford a thrilling spectacle as thousands of animals jump into the water which takes a heavy toll. The great herds remain in the Mara until late October or early November when rain is again falling and then slowly at first but with increasing momentum they leave the Mara by various routes following the rains back south. The Mara's abundant herbivores make it a paradise for predators both large and small. When the first Europeans came to the Mara in the late 1800's, it had been inhabited by the Masai people (who came down from the North) for about 300 years. The Masai lived in harmony with the wildlife, for they do not, except in times of famine, hunt wild game for food. In the Maa language, the word "Mara" means "light and shade" referring to the patchy mosaic of tree lined luggas interspersing the vast open plains. Following the first great rinderpest outbreaks at the end of the 1800's, which decimated the herbivores, woody vegetation began to take hold dominating the terrain and at the turn of the century the Mara was known by the Masai people as "Osere" meaning "thick bush". However, the incursion of Elephants driven out by human occupation of their former vast ranges and now confined in this relatively small protected area, coupled with man induced fires and grazing by both wild and domestic herbivores has wrought a transformation from heavily wooded savannah and bushland to more open grasslands, benefiting the grazers above the browsing species. Our orphan "Aitong" is from the Mara population of elephants, found near a place of that name, with head injuries that left her walking in circles, unable to keep up with the herd. |
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The Tsavo National Park takes its name from the river Tsavo, which rises in the foothills of Kilimanjaro, flows through Tsavo West National Park, its flow boosted by the discharge from the famous Mzima Springs, is bridged by the main Nairobi Mombasa road where it flows into the Eastern Section of the Park and there joins up with the river Athi (which rises in Nairobi) to become the Galana river. As such it flows through Tsavo East National Park, becoming the Sabaki when it leaves the Park to enter Giriama country and spill into the sea North of the coastal town of Malindi. The railway from Mombasa inland was under construction in the late 1800's, overseen by a man called Patterson, using labour imported from what was then British India. It was the famous lions of Tsavo that challenged the progress of the railway at Tsavo Station, perpetrating a reign of terror that held up work for several months as they dragged the hapless Asian workmen from their bush barricades and tents, devouring them within hearing of their terrified comrades. They even feasted on some Europeans, snatching one from a rail trolley and another from a coach. Colonel Patterson hunted the Tsavo maneating lions for some three months before he managed to shoot them, by which time they had accounted for over 50 Asian workers. His exploits, and those of the lions are graphically recorded in his book "The Maneaters of Tsavo". The lions of Tsavo still display the aggressive characteristics of their forbears and are very different to the lethargic Big Cats of the savannahs. In the tangle of thorny scrub vegetation that characterised Tsavo at this point in time, they have to be tough to survive and even today cope with much larger prey than their savannah cousins. It was at this famous place on the main Nairobi - Mombasa road, within sight of the railway bridge, that our orphan "Tsavo" was found, wandering alone, his mother dead nearby. | More about Tsavo National Park | TSAVO's detail profile | Foster TSAVO Now | |
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Our orphan "Mukwaju" takes his name from the Swahili word for the "Sausage Tree" (Kigelia africana), since he was orphaned at "Satao Camp", which today is a tented lodge shaded by a grove of these beautiful trees growing within the flood plain of the seasonal Voi river. This seasonal stream rises in the Taita Hills and flows only during the rains, flowing into and through the man-made lake known as Aruba, which today is so silted that it barely exists. There were occasions in the past when the Voi river actually reached the sea near Kilifi, but today it seldom even reaches the Park boundary, disappearing as a soggy marshy plain below Satao Lodge which dries out in the dry season. Elephant "Mukwaju", as a newborn, got bogged in the mud of the waterhole in front of the tented lodge. His desperate mother tried to pull him free, inflicting a deep tusk wound in his neck behind the ear in an attempt to get some purchase on his slippery body. However, when other thirsty elephant herds congregated, desperate to drink, and the camp's human activity arrived with the dawn, she left. Apparently, she returned the next night to try and recover her baby, but by that time he had been flown to the Trust's Nairobi Nursery. As things turned out, this was just as well, because the tusk wound in Mukwaju's neck needed a lot of veterinary intervention before it healed. In a wild state, it is doubtful whether he would have survived such a serious infection. | More about Tsavo National Park | MUKWAJU's detail profile | Foster MUKWAJU Now | |
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A lava ridge, which rises near Nairobi and runs the entire length of the Tsavo East National Park, known as "The Yatta Plateau", is the longest lava flow in the world, covering a distance of some 170 miles before disappearing beyond the Eastern boundary of the Park at a place called Lali. Even today, theories as to its origin conflict. Some Geologists believe that the Plateau was the result of the welling up of lava from a long crack in the earth's surface, others that the surrounding country has eroded away, and others that the lava spewed out from its source and simply travelled a very long way. It is just below the Yatta Plateau in what is known as The Triangle of Tsavo National Park, an area isolated by the Tsavo river on one side, the Mtito Andei watercourse and the Athi river on the other, that our orphan "Yatta" was found alone, gunshots having been heard by our de-snaring team operating just beyond the boundary. Although the body of her mother was not found, undoubtedly poachers operating in the area were responsible for this calf becoming separated from her mother and herd. | More about Tsavo National Park | YATTA's detail profile | Foster YATTA Now | |
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The elephants of the mainly arid Northern frontier districts of Kenya, like those of Tsavo, are anchored during the long dry season to the few sources of permanent water and it is then that the poachers are most active, bringing havoc and suffering to the herds. This has been exacerbated by the rapidly expanding human population which has encroached on previously wild lands, cut ancient migration routes genetically embedded in elephant memories and over-run fragile springs and watering systems with increasing numbers of livestock. Somewhere in the Samburu National Reserve in October 1961, an arrow fired from a poacher's bow changed the course of the life of an 18 month old baby elephant that was to become the most famous elephant of her time. She was named "Eleanor" and she was to become the very first self appointed elephant "Matriarch" to many other elephant orphans of misfortune that followed as a result of three decades of rampant slaughter for ivory beginning in the late sixties. This was exacerbated by the elephant die-off caused by the Great Drought of 1970 when 10,000 elephants died from malnutrition as a result of immigration resulting in overpopulation of what the elephants considered one of their last remaining safe havens - Tsavo National Park. The elephant population of the Tsavo Park's ecosystem, (an area twice the size of the Park itself, 16,000 square miles in extent) used to harbour, in happier times, some 45,000 animals. The Great Drought of 1970 accounted for some l0,000 mainly female and young elephants, and it was the poachers that accounted for the rest. By 1990 when the poaching was brought under control, only a mere 6,000 elephants were left within the entire 16,000 ecosystem. The elephants' safe haven had turned into an Elephants' Graveyard and what had happened to the population was to have a long-term negative impact, affecting their social fabric and causing another set of problems that became known as elephant/human conflict. | Read More About Eleanor's Story | ELEANOR's detail profile | Foster ELEANOR Now | |
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There is a place on the infamous Nairobi - Mombasa road, not far from the Buchuma waterholes of Slave Caravan fame in Tsavo East National Park, which is known as "Mackinnon Road", "Mackinnon" being the name of the man who laid the first strip of tar on what was then just a dusty, rutted track linking the capital city of Nairobi with the Coastal Port of Mombasa. This road marked the venue for a British Army Staging Camp during the Second World War, remembered by old-timers because a naïve soldier offered a passing wild elephant a bun, and got killed for his pains" Today, this point on the main highway is marked by a small roadside settlement sporting a mosque and some shops. Our orphan "Lissa" was rescued in the Park not far from Mackinnon Road, found wandering alone, with a back leg that was malformed having healed from an earlier break. She was obviously a poaching victim, and was close to death when rescued, emaciated and starved, yet of the age when she could be given directly to the then Matriarch, "Eleanor" her feeding supplemented with milk. | More about Tsavo National Park | LISSA's detail profile | Foster LISSA Now | |
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Before what was known as "The Taru Desert" became the Tsavo National Park in 1949, the only people that habitually moved through this area were a small tribe of traditional elephant hunters known as the Waliangulu, whose lifestyle and culture was interwoven with elephants. They were few in number, who in early days attached themselves to the pastoral Orma people for protection against marauding bands of Masai bent on acquiring any cattle that happened to be held by others. (Masai believe that all cattle belong to them, and any other tribe that had cattle, held them illegally since they were the property of the Masai decreed so by God.) The Orma people, who were also dependent upon their cattle, occupied more open country towards the Tana river and were constantly warding off Masai incursions into their tribal land. The then Taru Desert was unsuitable for livestock due to the presence of the tsetse fly carrying trypanosomiasis deadly to cattle, yet to which the wild game had become immune. The Waliangulu Elephant hunters, in exchange for protection, provided their Orma benefactors with meat as well as ivory which could be sold to passing Arab Slave Traders. Subsisting on the meat of elephants hunted by the Waliangulu meant that the Orma did not have to resort to killing their precious livestock, something both they and the Masai are always loathe to do, since cattle represent wealth, used as payment for marriage dowries and eaten only at important festive functions. The name "Chuma" means "iron" in Swahili, and our orphan "Chuma" lived up to his name, being hardy and tough, although just a year old when orphaned. Like Lissa, he could be given directly into the custody of "Eleanor" , a victim of poaching during a particularly dark period in the history of the Tsavo National Park when both Somali and in-house poaching was rife and uncontrolled for three decades following the death of David Sheldrick, Tsavo's famous first Warden. | More about Tsavo National Park | CHUMA's detail profile | Foster CHUMA Now | |
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The wise old leaders of the great elephant herds must have watched with interest, and no doubt mounting alarm, the changes wrought so rapidly within their vast domain by man. During the 1800's Slave Caravans traversed what was then only known as "The Taru Desert" from the Coast to the hinterland and back with their cargoes of chained slaves, ivory and skins, halting at the famous Buchuma waterholes, (now within Tsavo East National Park) where deep fissures in an out-cropping of bedrock traps and holds water well into the dry season. It was not far from here that our orphan "Taru" was found in November 1987 as a tiny three month old calf, whose mother had been killed by poachers for her ivory. | More about Tsavo National Park | TARU's detail profile | Foster TARU Now | |
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This orphan's herd was gunned down by Somali Ivory Poachers at a place within the Tsavo National Park where two German Missionaries named Krapf and Rebmann were the first Europeans to sight the snows of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain on the African Continent. Believing that it was impossible to find snow on the Equator, they surmised that Kilimanjaro's white summit must be limestone rock. Later, the British early Explorers traversed what is now known as The Tsavo National Park, people like Lord Lugard who walked from the Coast up the Galana river, after whom the famous "Lugards Falls" on the Galana river are named. Here, his party took a rest, and Lord Lugard got his finger bitten by a crocodile when he washed his hands in the river. | More about Tsavo National Park | DIKA's detail profile | Foster DIKA Now | |
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On the 64,000 acre Rukinga Ranch, Savannah Camps under Steve Turner has helped to construct the Taita Discovery Centre - a 40 bed Study Centre where foreign and local students undertake a variety of wildlife and conservation based studies in exchange for a fee, as well as examining alternative uses for this semi arid land abutting the giant Tsavo National Park. Running alongside the main Nairobi - Mombasa road which passes through this Ranch is the Mombasa pipeline, whose source is 60 miles distant, at Mzima Springs in Tsavo West National Park. This pipeline was constructed during the Colonial era in the early fifties, the contract given to a French firm assisted by Italian engineers. Crystal clear water is taken from beneath the lava to serve the city of Mombasa and its environs, but today, fifty years later, many parts of the pipeline has fallen into disrepair, leaking at many places along its length. Two of our orphaned elephants, "Maungu" and "Ndara" are victims of such places, both having fallen into one of the deep leaking manholes on this decaying pipeline where it passes through Rukinga Ranch. |