Grevy's Zebra. PHOTO | COURTESY
Sightings of the iconic thin-stripe Grevy’s zebras in the grasslands and woodlands of Laikipia are very rare.
The
first three hours of our game drive across the 50,000-acre Mpala
Research Centre and wildlife ranch last Saturday yielded a glimpse of
just one lonely stallion holding a hopeful territory for a love date.
When
we finally came across a herd of 12 grazing down the valley at
11.44am., Dino Martins— the Mpala executive director, who was our driver
and tour guide for the day —was ecstatic.
“It is
highly likely that we are the only people lucky to see them today. They
must have come all the way from Samburu,” said Dr Martins, an
entomologist and evolutionary biologist with a PhD from Harvard.
He was particularly thrilled by the presence of foals (the young ones) in the group.
“This means that the population is healthy and growing,” said Dr Martins.
The
Mpala game drive was part of last weekend’s Great Grevy’s Rally, a
national photographic census of the endangered animal only found in
northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia.
Kenya is home to
more than 90 percent of all the Grevy’s zebras in the world, making the
species a special part of the country’s natural heritage.
The
census conducted every two years since 2016 involves volunteers called
‘citizen scientists’ in tracking, identifying and counting the animals.
More
than 500 volunteers from different parts of the world— organised into
39 teams and armed with 150 GPS-enabled cameras— participated in this
year’s census in Laikipia, Samburu, Meru and Marsabit counties.
Belinda
Low Mackey, the co-founder and executive director of Grevy’s Zebra
Trust, says data from the biennial census will be used by national park
authorities and ranchers to manage pastures, water and other needs of
the zebras.
A drastic decline in the population of the
Grevy’s in the past four decades has stoked fears of possible
extinction. From 15,000 individuals recorded in the 1970s, the
population shockingly dropped to 1,500 at the onset of the new
millennium before rising slightly to about 3,000 at the last count in
2018.
Conservationists and scientists say that the
Grevy’s has largely been a victim of its beauty, which has made it
widely hunted for its skin over the years.
Human encroachment on its habitat, drought and diseases have added to its troubles.
Dan
Rubenstein, a professor of ecology at America’s Princeton University
who has been conducting research in Kenya’s rangelands for 40 years,
says that the decimation of the Grevy’s population began during the
colonial era and gathered pace in the last four decades.
“In
1980 when I first came to Kenya, one could still find an aggregation of
more than 400 Grevy’s zebras grazing in one area in Laikipia. But in
early 2000s, the population in the whole country was down to about
1,500,” says Prof Rubenstein.
“But
the Grevy’s turned a corner when we started to involve community scouts
in its conservation. We persuaded the local pastoralists to let it
share pastures and water with their livestock. We got middle class
people in Nairobi and other urban centres in Kenya as well as foreign
tourists to volunteer their time and resources for activities such as
the Great Grevy’s Rally.”
One of the major highlights
of this year’s photographic census was the participation of about 50
schoolchildren. A majority of them were members of the Wildlife Warriors
schools programme run by the conservation lobby WildlifeDirect.
“By
introducing the children to wildlife and nature through experimental
school-based activities, and conducting citizen science in the field,
they become proud of their Kenyan heritage and are eager to contribute
towards saving it. We are also encouraging some of them to consider
careers in science,” says Paula Kahumbu, the executive director of
WildlifeDirect.
The images collected during last
weekend’s census are to be sent to Princeton University for analysis,
and the results won’t be out until sometime in June or July this year.
But
the organisers of the Great Grevy’s Rally sounded fairly confident that
the experts will report a significantly higher number than the 2,812
identified in 2018, buoyed by the resilience shown by the zebras in
recent years.
jkotieno@ke.nationmedia.com
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