Conservation Program Update - Wildlife and Habitat Monitoring

The Conservation Team was hard at work for the month of December. Shared below is a series of updates from our continued various initiatives and efforts.

The Simba Scouts have started regularly monitoring the newly collared lions. The VHF function of all the collars is working well! Furthermore, the Scouts covered large distances on their patrols on Kuku Group Ranch. The minimum walking distance is 150 km per Simba Scout per month.

Map showing the movement of the 3 collared lions in December 2013. Yellow = Namunyak (young female);
Orange = Ormawoi (young male); Green = Lorpolosi (older male). All lions spend more of their time
moving around on Kuku Ground Ranch. Namunyak moved around Mkau area in the Chyulu Hills.
Ormawoi moved around lake Olpakai and spent a lot of time in between Olorika and Olbili.
Lorpolosi moved around Oltiasika, but his collar stopped transmitting data since the 7th of December.
This technical problem is being followed up with the suppliers. 

MWCT Rangers found old elephant tusks during a security patrol in Kuku in a dry riverbed. The tusks were heavily degraded and estimated to be more than 5 years old. The tusks were most likely buried by poachers in the past, as there were no signs of an elephant carcass apart from the tusks.

Old elephant tusks that were discovered by MWCT Rangers during a security patrol

MWCT Rangers found a young abandoned zebra while on patrol. The zebra was in healthy condition and so it was decided to leave it in the filed so that it can hopefully reunite with its' family. Survival rates of orphan zebras in captivity are very low, hence the decision to leave it in the wild.

The young abandoned zebra found by MWCT Rangers