Mara Mobile Veterinary Unit

Category: Life of a Vet, Livestock, Wildlife | Date: Mar 02 2008 | By: admin

Today, I met up with ranger Naitoi and I have downloaded the photos he has taken from last year. There were very interesting photos of wildlife in the reserve, but what really interested me the most were the photos taken from livestock attack scene. Yup, crime scene photos with all the gruesome details of torn flesh, dripping blood and all… well, basically lots and lots of dead bodies.

Naitoi had almost 200 photos of livestock attack, but I only manage to update 34 photos here on my personal website. The text is in Japanese, but the graphics should give you an idea on how much damage the large carnivores can cause to livestock keeper. These amazing photos gives an idea on what we are dealing with when we talk about need for predator control. The wildlife-livestock conflict is the major reason why lions and leopards are being killed all over Africa, but if you take a look at these photos, you will understand livestock keepers’ anger over the whole issue.

The first sets of photos are of cattle killed by lions. Second sets are leopard attacks on sheeps and goats. Lastly, I posted photos of livestock massacre or killing craze by leopard. I do not know if these are appropriate word to describe this behavior, but it is just crazy how this predator play kills the poor animals. It is just an enormous waste of animal lives…

This photo in particular shows powerful representation of what kind of damage carnivores are capable of inflicting on a herd of livestock. This is as a result of one leopard entering into boma at night, killing18 animals in half an hour or so, and eating only one. ALL the photos of mass killing are taken at different household in Trans Mara.

If you live in an area within 5 Km of wildlife reserve border, the livestock owners will be compensated for the loss (under the condition that they would not revenge kill the carnivores) It was hugely successful program started by Mara Conservancy in reducing an incident of revenge kill. However, this scheme has come to halt following the financial difficulty after tourism collapse.

3 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet, Wildlife | Date: Mar 02 2008 | By: admin

Thanks everybody for all the encouraging comments!

In general, I feel that there are two ways one asks for monetary donation. One way is by presenting all the horrible things happening on ground, so people donate through pitty and guilty conscious (yes, it is very unpleasant, but many use this trick and I really don’t like it). Other way is to present all the good things happening on ground, putting spotlight on efforts people put in their work and its outcome. In latter case, people feel the urge to support more of their work because they feel that they can be part of the great work. I think many of the blogs in Wildlifedirect is the latter case and it is also the way I have being getting my donations for the Mara Conservancy rangers. I just write what the rangers do, what they have achieved in six years, what changes they brought to Mara and what would happen if there is no fund to support their work. No matter how small the donation, it will make a great difference and is definitely part of great conservation work.

Yes, it is hard to ask for help, especially when it is monetary. It is not something I am used to do, as I am often stubborn and independent woman, but I do it because people around me need help. And they need help NOW. I dont think anyone likes asking for money, so when they do, they do it for someone they care or something they care about. I care about rangers in Mara as much as I care about the wildlife. Even if it means me asking 130,000 people for help, if Mara needs my small help, I will do it and I have done it. I dont know any one of the 130,000 people who I asked for support for Mara. They are total strangers to me. It is embarassing to sound so desperate and rejection hurt my feeling, too. Crisis in Mara has nothing to do with people I reached out, but my story and enthusiasm seemed to move lots of people to donate and as long as I can move people, I will continue my work.

Please, there is nothing impossible so join me in this Mara fundraising. Yes, I wrote articles in magazine, website, newspaper and webmanazine which is much bigger audience than most of you will start off with. However, people who read my article did amazing thing on their own initiative. They donated personally, then went and did their own small fundraising. Some wrote article about Mara on their website, others did small talks at local school, university, even at woman’s group lunch gathering and tennis group. Others showed the photos they took in Mara in the past and asked around for small donations from people who also have been to Mara.

We are no millionaire, but USD 30,000 is result of hundreds of small donations made by people who went out of their way to make a “small difference”. I have never done any fundraising in my life and certainly not a good campaigner or spokes person. Only thing I can proudly say is that I have unconditional love for Mara. I fell in love with this place 12 years ago when I first worked in a lodge called Mpata and later went back to school to become a vet because I wanted to do conservation work in Mara. I cannot stand here doing nothing when conservation work in Mara is put on a test.

2 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet, Wildlife | Date: Mar 01 2008 | By: admin

Yes, once again, sorry for my silence. I have been so busy with fundraising in the last couple of weeks, trying to help out with the situation of Mara Triangle. I was so thrilled to receive Brian’s Feb monthly report, recognizing my work.

“We have been very fortunate in receiving support to meet our projected shortfall and would like to thank the following for their support. I would particularly like to single out Asuka for her support; she has raised US$ 29,000 in three weeks through her articles and blog for the Mara Conservancy. This shows the power of the Internet in raising funds if the message is right.”

Initially I was so skeptical about how much I will be able to raise for my beloved Mara Conservancy rangers. Perhaps, reaching USD 10,000 will be hoping for too much…I thought. Well, my readers managed to surprise me with their outstanding support. The total is now over USD 30,000 (at the end of Feb) and Brian assures me that this amount is almost equivalent to all the ranger’s salaries for the entire month of March (or some of ranger’s salaries and some anti-poaching patrol fund, whatever breakdown they decide is fine with me). I was told that he also announced to the rangers that I am the one paying for their salaries in March and it is likely that no one will be laid off till the end of March. Many rangers came to thank me, making me little bit mushy…

4 responses so far

Category: Wildlife | Date: Feb 16 2008 | By: admin

Thank you Dana J $100 and THERESA S $25 for your generous donation! Here is amount of money which I have managed to collect for project vehicle fund during the last couple of months.

$5,000 -Disney Conservation Fund
$4,600 -Personal Donation from Japan
$6,500 -Media Work (dozens of media interviews I did for FREE, but they had to “DONATE” towards project vehicle in return)
$1,965 -Personal Donation from Wildlifedirect

The total amount comes to $18,065

The project vehicle costs $22,857 (with lots and lots of discount!), which leaves me to raise an additional amount of $4,792. I am very close to getting the means to get back to my vaccination work, but I still need help in reaching my goal!

3 responses so far

Category: Wildlife | Date: Feb 06 2008 | By: admin

I thought I would answer Pippa’s comment on my new entry as many people wonder about the same thing.

The so-called “Masai Mara” is sub-divided into three sections. Narok, Mara Triangle and Koiyaki-Lemek. Narok and Koiyaki are both in Narok district, while Mara Triangle is in Trans Mara district. The Trans Mara side of wildlife reserve is administered by a private company called “Mara Conservancy”. Mara Conservancy’s work is supported 100% from tourist park fee (they have been operating without donor support and government support since 2001). Total number of lodges in Narok and Koiyaki is over 60, where as lodges in Mara Triangle supporting Mara Conservationy’s work is only 5. Out of USD40 park fee, 55% goes to Trans Mara county council for district work (road, school, hospital, etc) and 45% goes towards wildlife adminstration work.

Please refer to this map on the administrative partitioning of the Maasai Mara. The pink area is the Koiyaki wildlife area (Maasai Group Ranch), green area is the Mara Triangle (Mara Conservancy) and blue area is Narok side of Mara (administered by Narok CC). The dark blue line shows the boundary of the area people often refer to as “Masai Mara National Reserve”. Beige area is Maasai land where I do my dog vaccination against Rabies and Canine Distemper Virus which came to halt due to current unrest and lack of car.

I was not exactly sure what it means when Pippa mentioned “another USD40” has to be paid to Triangle”, but I am guessing it is problem of double park fee that came about in last couple of years. When clients staying in Triangle went on extended game drive on Koiyaki side, they were charged extra park fee and the same happened when client went to Narok side. Thus, now same thing happens when clients from Narok or Lemek’s side enter into Triangle. If you stay in Narok side, you pay USD10 (agreed price by Narok and Triangle). If you stay in Koiyaki side, you pay USD40 (Koiyaki insisted that they will charge full park fee in their reserve so Koiyaki client have to do the same to Triangle). Offcourse, when you stay in Triangle, you pay “additional park fee” to enter Narok or Koiyaki. You will only pay USD40 if you stay in one part of Mara. They have been trying to come up with one-time park fee for entire Mara, but no agreement has reached up to this date.

10 responses so far

Category: Wildlife | Date: Feb 02 2008 | By: admin

For those of you who are concerned about the sate of Mara, please read the January report by Mara Conservancy.

January 2008
There was widespread unrest after the elections at the end of December, started because of allegations of vote rigging in the Presidential election. The international community was very quick to speak out and try and resolve the issue – fearing that the situation could degenerate into Rwanda style ethnic violence focused against the Kikuyu, the President’s tribe – they quickly appointed senior representatives to visit the country and finally Mr Koffi Annan, the recently retired Secretary General of the United Nations, was selected to assist in resolving the crisis. 250,000 people were displaced from the Rift Valley and several hundred people killed in the initial violence. For a few days in the middle of the month there seemed to be a glimmer of hope; things calmed down, Koffi Annan was going to mediate, and the situation started to return to normal. This was all shattered in the last week of the month, when violence returned – this time with a very strong ethnic bias that was only partly linked to the elections. This is a very dangerous situation because it breeds an increasing spiral of violence and retaliation. There is little doubt that that the initial trouble was, in part, fueled by politicians who felt that they had been cheated out of the Presidency. The problem is that they then lost control of the “genie” they had let out of the bottle. This brought to the fore long pent-up pressure on land and resources, as well as perceived injustices in the distribution of land before and after independence. Unless the security situation is very firmly dealt with, and the political impasse broken, we can expect a protracted period of civil unrest and ethnic clashes. This spells disaster for tourism, conservation, the economy – and of course for the country as a whole.

Revenue and Accounts
We have witnessed a major decline in revenue, brought about by the election fiasco and its aftermath. We had originally anticipated a 50% decline in tourist numbers but in fact the decline has been closer to 80% in January. We have had to institute major cut-backs and cost cutting measures in order to survive the next few months. Some of the measures taken to reduce expenditure include:

-Stopping all capital purchases
-Limiting all new development
-Stopping the grader
-Stopping one tractor
-Stopping compensation for cattle killed
-Reducing payments to community scouts
-Stopping two of the three anti-harassment vehicles
-Stopping all night ambushes
-Laying-off all casuals
-Severely restricting our patrol area
-Restricting all out-of-park travel and reducing staff food shopping trips to twice per month
-Limiting rations

This cannot be happening!!

The total number of bushmeat poachers Mara Conservancy rangers arrested since 2001 has now reached 1,003. Before these hard working rangers dedicated themselves in conserving the wildlife of the Mara, this area was experiencing heavy antelope poaching by bushmeat traders. The estimated number of animals killed per year ranged somewhere between 1,000-2,000. The first three months when Mara Conservancy started their work in the Mara, 8 lions were killed as direct result of livestock-wildlife conflict. I was working in a lodge in the Mara (1996) when Mara Conservancy was not established. Poaching and unrest were out of control in some part of Mara. Tanzanian border just near Serena was no go area for us, and there were many poacher huts inside the reserve, as well as several reported cases of tourists being attacked by bandits. Mara Conservancy has reduced these horrible incidents to almost zero in just seven years, so you can imagine how dedicated these people are. With the current crisis, things could possibly return to the way it was and that is a scary thought.

Please help the Mara!

9 responses so far

Category: Wildlife | Date: Dec 14 2007 | By: admin

Couple of nights ago, I accompanied the Mara Conservancy rangers on their anit-poaching patrol. It was great opportunity to witness the ranger’s commitment in protecting wildlife of Mara. The rangers found dried wildebeest and zebra meat in the field during the day and were doing a night ambush on poachers.

Unfortunately, poachers sensed something and they took off before rangers could close in on them. The warden tells me that they will be doing another ambush on the following night.

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Category: Life of a Vet, Wildlife | Date: Dec 11 2007 | By: admin

My good friend Kimojino, Mara Conservancy’s Assistant Warden has just started blogging. The blog is called Mara Triangle. He is extremely hard working guy who is constantly out on the field patrol looking after wildlife. He also got this great enthusiasm to learn new things and he was thrilled to be given an opportunity to blog (although he thinks he started ‘blocking’ and not ‘blogging’). Internet is new to him and so is computer, but his stories will be an interesting one. Will from Wildlifedirect office is currently here to help Kimojino learn how to blog!

3 responses so far

Category: Wildlife | Date: Dec 11 2007 | By: admin

Unusually heavy storm came to the Mara. It started raining heavily in the last couple of days, with rain continuing into the early morning hours.

I was visiting the wildlife reserve with Will from Wildlifedirect who is helping Kimojino (Mara Conservancy’s Assistant Warden) start his blog here in the Mara Triangle. We came across very interesting scene after all night storm. Several wildebeests were reported to be struck by lightning. When we arrived at the scene, we found total of 34 wildebeest and 4 zebra dead within half a km! Majority of them were sub-adult animals and most likely were not victim of lightning as it was reported by rangers, but simply due to heavy all night rain. However, some were quite distinctively a lightning case as carcass still had burnt hair smell from it.

No responses yet

Category: Wildlife | Date: Dec 05 2007 | By: admin

I forgot that I have uploaded this video footage months ago. It is footage of vultures feeding on carrion. Yes, it was me who spooked the vultures by leaning out of the car window too much. Sorry! (but they came back to carcass within a minute)

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