A regular conservation source from Arusha has sent details about a planned joint transboundary game count, going underway shortly to cover areas along the common border, like Amboseli / Kilimanjaro national parks and further into the Rift Valley along the Lake Magadi / Lake Natron areas.
The census
was agreed upon in the face of alarming poaching numbers becoming
available of elephant and other game, prompting the African Wildlife
Foundation, in short known as AWF, to help finance the 80 million Kenya
Shillings cost.
One of the
added components will be a detailed assessment of the greater Amboseli
area vis a vis sharply grown human populations, expanding ever further
into marginal land areas previously left for the wildlife to roam and
migrate, as agricultural production was thought to be impossible on a
sustained basis.
Major
wildlife corridors in Kenya, extending from Amboseli, and in fact from
across the border in Tanzania even, to as far as the Nairobi National
Park or the Chyulu Hills, are now increasingly diverted to other uses,
prompting NEMA in Nairobi recently to put a moratorium of at least one
year on all developments in this area. This time out period is hopefully
providing some useful data on migration patterns and routes of game,
then allowing for transit areas to be gazette and making human
settlements illegal.
The last
census was done in 2010, according to the source, during which zebras,
elephant, wildebeest, giraffes and gazelles were counted, among other
species, as well as bird counts undertaken.
The count
will be conducted from the air to cover the entire area more effectively
and use established methods to calculate the game roaming the surveyed
parts. Results, as and when available, will be published here.
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