Tumaren

Category: Mammals | Date: Jul 16 2009 | By: tumaren

It is too easy to give animals human attributes, particularly when you have an animal dealing with the death of one of its own.  Yet the following pictures, that were taken over a 24 hour period after a young female elephant’s death, are compelling and leave little doubt that animals mourn.

In the next two shots the mother lies down beside her calf and sleeps for several hours. At this point the young Elephant had been dead for more than 12 hours.

Tags: African Elephant, Elephant, Elephant Disease, Wildlife Disease

3 responses so far

Category: Issues, Mammals | Date: Jul 10 2009 | By: tumaren

In the past month a number of Elephants in our area have died of a strange, yet undiagnosed (atleast by us) disease.  Our tracker Leshilling Lemanyass says that he has seen this problem with Elephants many times and that he suspects it effects their stomach and digestion.  We have found two sick animals on us both of whom appeared to have trouble passing their manure (legs spread in a prolonged and uncomfortable looking way).  Our guys who work for us as Rangers and as trackers on our safaris have also described skin problems corresponding with this dissease.  If anyone knows anything about this dissease which has been killing many elephants in the greater Laikipia / Samburu area we would love to know the what it is.  These sad pictures are of a young female that we found this morning as it was dying.  Its mother was still guarding it and it was only for a few minutes that we were able to get to her.  We assumed that she was already dead but she was still breathing but with no movement from any other part of her body besides her blinking eyelid. Very sad.

This is an image of the mother and matriarch guarding the body:

Here is the young female:

Tags: African Elephant, Elephant, Elephant Disease, Wildlife Disease

9 responses so far

Category: Mammals | Date: Jun 22 2009 | By: tumaren

30 Wilddog at Tumaren yesterday drinking water about our river camp!  I sent the pictures to the Laikipia Wilddog Project with two close ups of 2 of their collared animals.  Kayna from the LWP was able to confirm the identity of both dogs based on markings, one of which was the alpha male.  This particular pack also is one that typically spends more time north of here and it was informative for Kayna to know that they sometimes also frequent our area.  Now she says that when she cant get a signal during their tracking flights that they will remember to cover our area as well to see if they are in our neck of the woods.  Such incredible animals.

This is the alpha male:

7 responses so far

Category: Mammals | Date: Jun 10 2009 | By: tumaren

A Leopard and an Elephant came to the carcass of a cow that succumbed to the drought the other night. (the date on our camera is off - this was only a week or so past). Cheers, Jamie

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Category: Issues | Date: May 29 2009 | By: tumaren

When I first heard suggestions that Chinese Road and infrastructure workers were behind a great deal of the recent wave of ivory and bush meat poaching in the country i was skeptical.  It sounded like a simple racist jab at some hard working people.  And yet the story is everywhere. I even heard a story about KWS officers who found a whole crocodile in a Chinese Road worker freezer last week.  This story like many could not be verified but what can verified is beginning to leak slowly to the press.  Here is a short list of stories i picked up from a simple google search:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/kenya/090326/elephant-poaching-problem-kenya?page=0,0

http://www.africanconservation.org/content/view/1502/406/

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/530146/-/item/1/-/1moinv/-/index.html

http://www.bushdrums.com/news/index.php?shownews=2129%20-%2031k

http://www.elephanttrust.org/node/541

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-02/2009-02-27-voa30.cfm?CFID=212460694&CFTOKEN=86145237&jsessionid=8830bb86c5ff2a67b7154242786e02728400

Tags: Chinese Poaching in Kenya, poaching, Poaching Kenya

8 responses so far

Category: Issues, Mammals | Date: May 29 2009 | By: tumaren

Here is the sad story of another poached Rhino.  This pressure will never ease until more effort is spent addressing the underlining cause, the unbelievable market value for the horn.  We in Kenyan conservation spend so much money breeding Rhinos but i question whether it would be money better spent instituting stiffer sentences, laws and education in those places where Rhino horn is being purchased by the end user.

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/-/1070/603874/-/7j85h8/-/

Tags: kenya conservation, laikipia, Laikipia Rhinos, Rhino Conservation

No responses yet

Category: Mammals | Date: May 19 2009 | By: tumaren

I was having a look at some of our past cameratrap pictures and looking closer at the Leopard images in order to see if i could identify the individuals.  I reckoned at first that the first two cats were the same and the third was a second cat.  The size of the first two males looks about the same and i suppose that is why i assumed they were the same. The third looked more juvenile, not yet with all the fat around his upper body, neck and head.  Anyway, have a look at these three cats and tell me your opinion:

Here is the first one. notice the sort of spiral around one central rousette three quarters down his left back end.

Now compare that same area to this cat caughtabout 2kms away. he is about the same size but that funny rousette does not appear on this animals rear end.

Now, here is the third animals left rear.  he appeared significantly smaller than the previsous two cats in the other images we got of him.

5 responses so far

Category: Issues | Date: May 06 2009 | By: tumaren

Tumaren’s Rangers have caught 2 more Poachers hunting Impalas with snares on our property.  These particular men have been selling us honey for many years.  Because the honey gathering was helping the local community there presence on Tumaren was tolerated and the honey collected was purchased by Kerry.  Kerry then would filter and sell the honey in Nairobi allowing the local community to sell to a much larger market.  Not only have we paid these men many hundreds of dollars for their honey but we have also spoken to them about other employment as their brother is the new Councilor for the Ol Motiok community to our north.  We were told that these men had to pay 10,000 shillings about the equivalent of 130 US dollars.  This kind of punishment is sadly pathetic but it will hopefully scare them back off our conservation area.  Should they try snaring again on Tumaren they will supposedly (hopefully) face a much steeper charge.

Tags: game meat, gamemeat, poaching, snares, snaring

One response so far

Category: Issues | Date: Apr 26 2009 | By: tumaren

Here are a series of Rocks that I photographed on a recent trip down the Ewaso Nyiro River. I would appreciate any ideas anyone might have about any of these structures as well as some clue as to how they were formed.  I know that our area has experienced a great deal of interesting geologic activity associated with the the movement and spread of the rift valley but i dont know enough about it.  Thanks for any ideas. Cheers, James

Tags: Kenyan Geology, Rift Valley Geology

4 responses so far

Category: Issues | Date: Apr 26 2009 | By: tumaren

Here is an image of the dam we built here on Tumaren for our wildlife.  It remains dry despite April being what should be the rainiest month of the year.  We can only hope that May makes up for the lack of rain this month.

Tags: dams, wildlife management

No responses yet