Thursday, June 5, 2014

Conservation Program Update - Aerial Game Count 2014

Kuku Group Ranch lies in the heart of the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem, and covers 1133km squared. It is an important conservation area for wildlife and critical ecosystem services, protecting crucial water resources from Mount Kilimanjaro and the Chyulu Forest, which supports millions of people across Kenya for water needs.
Kuku Group Ranch location in Kenya
Understanding wildlife and livestock distribution and abundance on Kuku Group Ranch (KGR), and being able to monitor trends and changes over time, is an important part of being able to develop appropriate conservation management strategies. Therefore, aerial surveys were started on KGR in 2010 as part of a long term monitoring plan.

This will provide valuable information to enable the monitoring of trends in the distribution and abundance of wildlife and livestock on KGR providing a basis for monitoring ecological changes and patterns of human use over time. A longterm dataset will enable MWCT to monitor major patterns of abundance and distribution of certain wildlife species in particular in relation to habitat and human presence and disturbance. The results will provide information to identify areas of conservation, which will guide conservation management.

The 2014 Game Count team after a very long day of hard work!
Fuelling the aircraft mid-day
In general, there has been an increase in wildlife as well as livestock numbers over the past few years since the drought of 2009. The most abundant wildlife species found on Kuku Group Ranch during the aerial survey of 2013 was the Burchell's zebra, followed by gazelle, Maasai giraffe, and Impala. The results of this year's aerial survey will be compared with the previous years.

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