by: David Daballen

On July 26, the Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service Dr. Julius Kipng'etich was visiting the vast Laikipia Samburu ecosystem to address all the challenges that we are facing this area. He met with all the different stake holders in the region who are involved in conservation, including the local council, NGO’s, hoteliers, and heads of all the different community conservancies. His first day was in Maralal, where he met most of the Council officials who run Samburu National Reserve, the Council Clerk, and top government officers who are involved in environmental issues.  Later in the day he flew into the Reserve, where he met with hoteliers. The following morning on July 27, he visited most of the newly created community conservancies to witness developments and touch base with his district officers.

After a late lunch at Samburu lodge the Director was accompanied by council wardens, KWS District wardens, his top security people, Head of Species Patrick Omondi, and other KWS departmental heads. They drove into Save the Elephants camp, to see what kind of work we do and to see our field station especially after the recent flood. The Director and I joked about the Rommel’s car, which other people refer to as (god’s must be crazy) How Toyota are so proud about the cars they manufacture, in that it can understand musth bull.

Rommel's artwork!

I then took him on long tour of the research centre, starting with the jaws outside the centre and explained why we collect them and that they are all from known individuals.

We then discussed our work in monitoring illegally killed elephants and our Tracking Animals for Conservation program using the wall charts at the centre illustrating our results.  Since this was a very big group of security and scientists they took great interest in our work and were especially interested in the issue of wildlife corridors. The Director stressed the need to put this vital corridor into action to his head of planning, stressing that if we leave it too long it may be to late to save these corridors. Everyone agreed and contributed toward that debate.

L-R: Gilbert Sabinga (STE), Patrick Omondi (KWS), Dr. Julius Kipng'etich (KWS Director) and David Daballen (STE)

We then viewed both the functional and dysfunctional elephant collars, and explained all the technicalities involved, including how they work, and the Geo-fencing program in Laikipia in which we are running. In response, the Director asked Patrick to set aside ten collars every year in support of the efforts to secure the future of elephants, and particularly the wildlife corridors.

We then demonstrated our google earth tracking software, and looked at some collared elephants on screen.  The Director was fascinated, we moved from Samburu to Laikipia and showed him the different areas in which we are monitoring elephants, explained all the challenges involved especially the Laikipia side where human encroachment was moving on high gear.

Gilbert Sabinga shows the visiting team some elephant movements on google earth

The Director’s visit was extremely productive. He was impressed with our work and said information is power and we should keep up our efforts. We have identified new avenues of collaboration with the KWS, and have already installed our google earth software on several KWS computers to allow the Director and his top security representatives to track our collared elephants. We look forward to working ever more closely with the KWS.