Life in Nairobi National Park

Ian Cowie

2006-02-08T03:26:00.000-08:00

As the drought continues unabated & all we can do is wait for the rain; as water rationing begins in Nairobi city & the cattle are dropping all over the plains (from starvation!), more sad news.
Ian Cowie, the man behind www.nairobiparklions.org
is no more.
I was in constant contact with him owing to our mutual interest in the Nairobi National Park. Unusually, he hadn't responded to my messages & even the KWS rangers hadn't seen him go into his beloved park.
Luckily I got the news of his death on the day of his memorial service, so was able to go to that & say goodbye.
It was Ian's father Mervyn Cowie, who as Chief Game Warden established the Nairobi National Park in 1946, the first in Kenya. Ian was a professional aviator & perhaps only got enough time to do what he could for the NNP towards the end of his life.
Ian was particularly devoted to the lions of the park & for this reason was an avid "fencer", ie one who advocates fencing the park in order to safeguard it's future.
It is sad to think that the Park will never be fenced, for the simple reason that the Maasai neighbouring the park want to have their cake & eat it: having sold their land, yet they still, being Maasai, believe in cattle & in drought situations (such as prevail at the moment) head straight for the rank pasture (unburnt & unmanaged as it is) in the park.
Tonight thousands of cattle will stream into the park, where a little grazing remains, unlike on the plains without (see my earlier posts.......) There they compete with zebra,hartebeest, buffalo, eland & gnu, who will calve in March. I predict a disaster & a lost year for this last population of wildebeest:time will tell.
In the meantime, the buffalo are beginning to weaken, while the scavengers are in their element.
Such is the seasonal complexity of Ian's NNP.
Rest in peace in the Great Plains of the Hereafter...

Drought Stress

2006-01-19T05:42:00.000-08:00

Ten days on & each day dawns in merciless beauty. A mob of wildebeest is on the barren plain behind our house. Have they come in or are they going out of the park to desperately look for grazing ?(Forlorn hope -the only grazing left is the rank standing hay in the park.)The dams are disappearing one by one. At least the big Nangolomon dam is too voluminous to disappear completely.
The carrion feeders are having a field day, although the several pairs of breeding lappet-faced vultures that used to occur in the park cannot enjoy the seasonal bounty.They have disappeared -assumed poisoned in the mass poisoning of vultures that took place on nearby Game Ranching last year.
Cattle carcasses are proliferating -hunger-weakened animals now susceptible to diseases such as Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia (CBPP), which is now affecting the massed herds of Maasai cattle which enter the park every night.
KWS have been chasing rhino in the park again.I hope they don't repeat last year's disaster, when 5 rhino died during translocation.
How many precious black rhino do we have in Nairobi National Park -one of Kenya's two top rhino sanctuaries in terms of breeding success?
Rhinos need peace & quiet to do well. They haven't been getting it near us (Maasai Gate) with aircraft & helicopters noisily going round & round.
What is the aeroplane FOR? This is a tiny park. Smacks of Kenyan visual statusism to me.
Not all is bad in our glorious park -just stressed. This year NNP really is a dry-season sanctuary, where the last zebra, gnu & kongoni can survive (& even breed -many zebra foals & hartebeest young are evident & the wildebeest are expected to calve in March.
Will there be any grass for the lactating mothers?
We saw a leopard in the forest a few days ago.

Drought in Nairobi National Park

2005-12-27T05:43:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I drove back home across Tsavo & up the main highway to the Athi River gate of NNP. It was depressing seeing how Kenyans are degrading their own environment & paradoxically destroying their resource base for the future in their desperate need to survive TODAY. Perhaps the most saddening area was the Simba/Emali area -overgrazed by the Maasai on one side of the road & ploughed up for agriculture on the other. At least a few trees remained on the "livestock" side, but the entire landscape was pitifully dry & denuded, marked by huge, ominous red dust-devils.
This was once a rich plains -woodland mosaic, full of vegetation, birds & even large mammals. Now there are desperate people selling charcoal by the roadside,skinny,starving cattle which will soon be dead & much rehabilitation work in the future...
In the Park, huge cattle trails mark the noctournal (& illegal) cattle trails where the Maasai cattle come in over the unfenced border every night.
Last night a red horizon showed the flickering line of a bush-fire in the park.
The Embakasi River forming the eastern border of the park is a thin trickle & today a ranger reported a mass of dead fish & the foam of a pollutant in it's slow moving waters -it has been poisoned by (no doubt) industrial effluent up-stream.
The Warden knew this 2 weeks ago, but today his comment - 'We're waiting for Lab results....." -while 'his' (& my!!!!!!!) Park slowly dies......

Drought in Nairobi National Park

2005-12-27T05:43:00.000-08:00

Drought Looms

2005-12-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

I have lived on the edge of NNP for some 8 years or so, but NEVER have I seen so much game as now covers the 'top' of the Park adjacent to my home.Commuting to the city along the ridge opposite my house, one is caught in a veritable animal traffic-jam of zebra (our most plentiful ungulate), gnu & eland, often leaping high into the air as these frisky, alert antelope keep a sensible distance from the many vehicles which buzz dustily up & down the park tracks.
These species have all migrated into the Park from Maasailand & have been there since October. In ordinary circumstances, the Rains & consequent grazing should have dispersed them outside the Park. But not this year: the rains have failed, or are very delayed & things look ominous.
Will there be enough grazing to sustain these herds (with their newly -born young -it is the calving season; calibrated by nature to occur in the rainy season....?)until the Long Rains break in April/May?
In addition, the 'Maasai Factor' is huge: very little grazing remains on the plains of Kajiado & the only area where there remains a reserve is in the Park. The Maasai are not afraid to move their herds of increasingly hungry cattle into the Park, especially at night.
This is why they will NEVER allow the Park to be fenced.

Recently, driving along the track towards Langata I came across the remains of no less than 3 night-jars -squashed on the road. These fascinatingly delicate noctournal birds are most active at dawn & dusk & are attracted to open spaces such as roads, where they become easy victims for the tyrannical motor-car & it's careless driver.
Sad to see that where driving is supposedly banned at night, these innocent birds (& there can't be many of them ,given the number of vehicles in Nairobi) are blatted so thoughtlessly .

Let me end this post on a positive note.

Yesterday on the way into work, taking the children into school for their last day, we were semi-charged by an irate bull rhino & then my 4 year-old daughter cleverly spotted a pair of mating lions -the lioness lying voluptuously on her back, the golden-maned male taking a well-earned rest from his labours. And this in amongst all the other game.

Lucky Commuter! Lucky Children! What a Park!

Cat on a Cold Tin Roof

2005-11-16T05:11:00.000-08:00

The Short Rains have come -for a few days - & the dessicated tawny landscape is turning a new shade of green.Sadly this is an illusion, for a few downpours do not a wet-season make.The ungulates seem to sense this & have not, in their usual instinctive way whenever there is serious rain about,made for the borders of the Park as they usually do.
Zebra are still foraging deep into the Langata forest in search of the best grazing & the herds of hungry,thin Maasai cattle that can be seen up & down the park boundary (inside) illustrate the reality of why NNP will never be fenced.
There are herds of zebra grazing on my 'lawn' these days & a night or two ago, a noctournal excitement.
We sometimes have the resident leopard jump onto our mabati (tin) roof.On this occasion, I called for Ali -the night-watchman - but he remained asleep.Armed with a pressurised air hooter, I went outside & there she was -eyes orange like coals in the beam of my torch, calmly lying on the roof of the bathroom, deciding whether her takeaway dinner had arrived or not.
A blast on my hooter put paid to her delusion (& Ali's lie-in) & she shot away across the roof-top.
It's good to know that these big cats still have space in & around NNP.
For more info & especially on the status of big cats in the NNP see:
www.nairobiparklions.org

Maasai Ostrich

2005-10-11T00:43:00.000-07:00

There are many ways in which NNP is unique - as a wild area so close to a major city,as a rhino sanctuary for Black Rhino (michealii -the East African sub-species), as the pollution mitigating "lungs of a city";but not least, NNP has the highest density of wild ostrich within it's boundaries that is known.These extraordinary savannah birds (& NNP is classic savannah) can be commonly seen all over the Park.They begin nesting after the Long Rains in July, which means that by the end of September, the clutches of eggs (incubated & protected by both parents) have hatched. This week-end, we saw a pair of ostrich with 12 chicks & previously I had seen another successful hatch of 7 & there is also another suspected nest site close to where we live.
The point is that wild ostrich do not have the space to breed in the wild in areas outside of the park & even if they do lay, eggs are robbed by people.
If for no other reason, therefore, but for 'space for ostrich', the NNP should be protected in perpetuity....
PS The world-famous Amboseli National Park has been degazetted (illegally) by the government of Kenya. If this move goes through, it is the end for the Kenya Wildlife Servive (KWS) which has the authority to manage our protected areas & all wildlife in Kenya.
What next? Degazettement of NNP? Tsavo?
For further details see www.saveamboseli.net

Suburban Giraffe

2005-10-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

When I sit on my marvellous vantage point along the ridge from my home, the view is bisected by the Empakasi River, which means, in Maa,'Always Flowing'. The river valley falls away into the distant east,marked by acacia groves. As I scan the landscape (for the land north of the river is the Nairobi National Park, while thast to the west is Kajiado -Maasailand)I often see the long shapes of giraffe out on the plains, well out of the park. And why not -here there is plenty of whistling thorn un-nibbled at the giraffe-level, unlike in the park!
On the ridge where we live, there is a female giraffe & her yearling calf who seem to have moved out of the park permanently. They are not afraid of people or cars; in fact , they are suburban giraffe. Yesterday, mid-day, as the moon moved over the sun in a partial solar eclipse (WEIRD!!)she was in our yard,feeding on the shrubs .
I noticed that her front left leg had a snare tightly embedded in her hock, though she has had it for some time, with no apparent necrosis or discomforture. Perhaps her skin is so tough & the ligaments & tendons & bone so strong in this massive animal (the tallest animal species on land!) that she just doesn't feel this stark memento of what it means to live near humans, with their nefarious & hungry ways.
Her calf, meanwhile,has cut it's leg crossing a fence-line (she is still abit short to stride over these ubiquitous wildlife obstacles.)
Such is life for suburban giraffes on the boundaries of the NNP....

Gnews

2005-09-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

Nairobi National Park is located just to the north of Kajiado District, the southern area of which is experiencing a hard drought. This situation extends into the dispersal area for our migratory species -wildebeest, eland & the numerous zebra. In addition to the dry conditions, we have had several years of good rains prior to this year and Maasai livestock has expanded accordingly (the last really dry year was 2000.)
This has meant much grazing pressure on the plains to the south of the Park, especially in the area known as Sholinkai, as cattle from elsewhere in the district have come in to look for the ever dwindling grass.
Wildebeest -gnu - are true creatures of the plains -the SHORT GRASS plains, that is, which suits their particular method of grazing & where they can see potential enemies in the open. NNP does not (any longer) contain habitat consisting of short grass plains, which is why gnu are not resident throughout the year. One should also take into consideration the great plains-evolved behaviour to MOVE, for true creatures of the plains are perpetually on the move, in search of pasture.
The last few hundred wildebeest that inhabit our bit of the Athi-Kapiti ecosystem have arrived in the park and mingle with the more numerous zebra, who are much better able to mow down the coarse grasses to the level enjoyed by gnu.
Last sunday we witnessed an occupational hazard: a yearling gnu was breast high in the Athi Dam, a huge crocodile attached to it's hind-leg. Previous visits to the dam saw a zebra with lion-claw scrapes on it's backside & on another occasion, a zebra with it's tail & hind-quarters severely stripped by what must have been a hyena attack.
The dam, where thirsty grazers gather to drink, is a perfect place for predators....

Paving paradise

2005-09-21T05:55:00.000-07:00

In last saturday's Daily Nation -the most influential paper around here -the columnist Wycliffe Muga wrote what we NNP lovers dread to hear. The gist of his article was that the park is far too valuable as real estate to endure as it does today - empty plains, filled with the lonesome sound of whistling thorn singing in the wind. Instead, he suggests, this emptiness -this void- should be filled by the city, hungry to expand. The roar of traffic will replace the whistling, exhaust fumes will replace the wind & the last piece of the virgin Athi-Kapiti Ecosystem that once was will disappear under concrete,or, more realistically,the sprawl of the urban township.
This argument is easy to counter, for similar, but already urban degraded plains stretch away from the south east of the city, near the international airport (JKIA).
Let the city sprawl there, but not into our city's lungs, this unique & oldest of Kenya's National Parks. In any case, using new methods of ecological audit, whereby the environmental benefits & hidden advantages (value as water-catchment etc) of a given area are weighed against it's destruction, I feel sure that Nairobi is much better off with NNP than without it!
Kenya is a beautiful country which people come from all over the world to visit.
It's attractions are many & varied & a metaphor for this stunning & unexpected diversity is the Nairobi National Park.
Mr.Muga, given the rate at which Nairobi is changing and the environmental pressures which are self-evident within the city today, can you really advocate the destruction of the NNP so easily? What about the precautionary principle & our responsibility to the future?

Mating Season?

2005-09-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

An animal we seldom see, but which we know lives on the plains of the NNP, is the elegant little black-backed jackal.We were therefore surprised recently, at night, to hear,on the other side of the ridge from our home, the staccato barks:"KWE........KWE.........KWE" of a pair of jackals. They were in the vicinity of the leopard kill I mentioned in my last post.
Yesterday evening, from my vantage point where I like to meditate in the quiet & space of the plains, I heard ANOTHER (or was it the same )pair -unlikely- barking....

I can only think that it might be the mating season for this species and that barking is a vocal means of contact for animals widely dispersed over the plains.

Can anybody elucidate on this possibility?

Leopard Kill

2005-09-14T05:50:00.000-07:00

This morning I noticed vultures roosting on a tree & later noticed them flying down to the ground close to the track - a kill!?
Sure enough, on driving past, there was the carcasse of an adult zebra,lying almost unscathed, being observed by a mzungu who said that he had seen a leopard on the kill yesterday. This is a very large prey animal for a leopard to successfully bring down -probably 3 or 4 times it's weight, so I was suitably impressed.

Then I drove on through the milling herds of fat, striped wild horses -what a beautiful & what a SUCCESSFUL species this is, not least in the context of NNP, where it still occurs in good numbers, both in the park proper & also in what remains of the dispersal area, where zebra seem to have no problem with the many fences, which have bedevilled and destroyed the other common ungulate species - wildebeeste, a true creature of the unparcelled-out plains....

Ode to NNP

2005-09-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we did the traditional tour of the park to see what is moving about: the impression is one of a healthy eco-system mwhere a migration still takes place.
There are hundreds of zebra all over the Park -although I never reached the Embakasi Plains -a large area of whistling thorn & old,rank grass in my opinion long overdue to be burnt. Tightly packed mobs of zebra are to be seen all over the place seeking out the new growth of grass brought on by the showers we have been,unusually, enjoying.
We watched herds of zebra wading deep (up to their chests) into the rapidly receding waters of the Athi Dam, where there was also a herd of wildebeeste bulls.
I'm happy to report that there are a good deal more than the 4 gnu mentioned in a previous post within the Park & more could be seen on the closely cropped (overgrazed) plains of the Sheep & Goat land on the Park's boundaries.
The best news is that despite the failure of my leopard survey: busy doing other things; my wife & children saw TWO leopard running across the road on their way home from the city. So the leopards ARE around!
In addition a single cheetah was seen in the Park yesterday.
When you add up the biomass in the Park right now, you get the impression that far from being sickly, our suburbanised eco-system is in (seasonally) hale health.

Too Valuable to Endure?

2005-09-09T05:04:00.000-07:00

I have just got back from the inspiring wonders of the Migration in the Maasai Mara & it was rather depressing to get back to the 4 -yes, FOUR -wildebeeste that are all that remain (in my area of the park at any rate) of the great herds witnessed by Teddy Roosevelt & others at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. 'Our' migration was the original one that inspired the early visitors to East Africa -the migration of the herds around the Athi-Kapiti Ecosystem, of which only the NNP remains........
On the positive side, there seems to me to be a greater diversity of ungulates in our tiny park than on the vast plains of the Mara (covered in gnu as they are.)

My companion in the Mara got me thinking when she commented "of course that land (the Park) is much too valuable to stay the same -the city will engulf it one day..." In the same way that I came around to the idea of fencing this last vestige of a great natural wonder by realising that fencing was not IF but WHEN, so I can see her point..

Tomorrow I am surveying the area I live for signs of leopard (usually numerous) because no less than 2 have been trapped & shipped out of the area in the last two weeks:trespassers on human interests.Oh dear.

Syncerus caffer (aka the Cape Buffalo)

2005-08-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

I have been away in the Maasai Mara for a week, amongst the enormous grunting herds of migrating gnu, so apologies to those of you who like to walk the tawny plains of NNP with me.
Back in the Park, the plains are rapidly drying out despite the cool & overcast weather that is typical for this time of year.
The Park may be not so good for the lions see www.nairobiparklions.net, but the megaherbivores are doing just fine, despite the recent disaster of a botched rhino translocation.
Megaherbivores in the Park include giraffe, buffalo, the subject of this post and the East African subspecies of Black Rhino (michealii).
Buffalo were apparently introduced into the Park, so it is interesting to see how they "do" now that rinderpest is but a memory. There must be some 400 in the Park & their importance to the ecosystem is , it seems to me, twofold (besides being rather wonderful, enormous and fierce wild cattle!) One, their grazing helps (in the abscence of substantive management) to keep the rangeland sweet & attractive to other grazing species and two, they are a potential source of prey for the hard pressed & hungry lions.
The problem is that these latter do not seem to know how to kill them! Where there never buffalo here in the past? That seems almost impossible to believe, although experienced lion watchers such as Judith Rudnai, who studied the lions here in the 70s says that their favourite prey was always wildebeest and zebra and more recently, warthog.
The wildebeest have almost disappeared, the zebra are migratory and often absent from the Park & the warthog were decimated by rinderpest and their population rebound was subsequently impacted upon by heavy lion predation (in the abscence of other prey.)
If only the lions would LEARN (for their inability to do so seems to be behavioural) to kill buffalo!

Maasailand

2005-08-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

I live in Maasailand -in Kajiado District on the edge of the NNP, from where I can see the towers & skyscrapers of the city of Nairobi on the hazey (polluted) horizon. For 7 years my family & I have lived here, commuting into the city to work on most days. This experience has given me some insight into the Park & its denizens & how they interreact with the people & livestock which exist just across the Embakasi River, which is the southern boundary.
Unlike to the north,east & west,where electric fences strictly demarcate the limits of the pristine natural environment as against the roaring traffic & never resting energy of the city beyond, to the south is the so-called 'dispersal area' where animals may -in theory-wonder out of the Park, thus giving its habitats some respite from grazing & browsing.
This situation can lead to much conflict, but there is definitely a positive aspect - as I may observe on any evening, if I have time, when I go to a look-out point along the ridge from my home to scan the lovely plains landscape,split down the middle as I look East by the river that is the Park boundary. To the North, the acacia studded plains roll towards the city, while to the South, the same landscape (sans long grass) is dotted with homesteads, divided by fence lines & busy with grazing herds of cattle & shoats.
What is remarkable is that if you look carefully over this classic savannah scene, you will see -in amongst this humanised landscape, groups of 'wild' .....or are they suburban? animals ....a group of zebra there, a herd of impala near the river & perhaps the distinctive tall necks of a herd of giraffe in the whistling thorn several miles away from the Park.
This is a sight unusual anywhere in the world where most large ungulates have disappeared from areas where people live - the two are mutually exclusive.
But not here in Maasailand.

Blogging for NNP

2005-08-02T06:27:00.000-07:00

Off we go with a brand new blog . This one intends to be about life in Nairobi, Kenya as it exists on the high plains nearby the teeming city, in the Nairobi National Park.
Here in Nairobi, we have a fine microcosm of Life in the 21st Century - a city of roughly (!) 3 million sprawling out onto the hills, plains & forests (patches of) which surround it.
Atmospheric pollution is getting worse by the day, mainly owing to the many second-hand, cheaply imported cars from Japan (like mine)which arrive in the city every day. Their old diesel engines pump out the CO2 & traffic jams are an unhealthy experience.
Luckily for the city, it has lungs -the NNP (Nairobi National Park) & the palls & wreaths of smoke I can see from my home overlooking the park marking the highways & thoroughfares is quickly dissipated by the constant wind we usually get from the North East.
Suffice it to say (for I am not a fast typer) that this blog intends to try & tease out some of the dynamics inherent where mankind & it's cities rub up against ever-changing nature.In this great chaos there've got to be some lessons to learn! All contributions welcome to any environmental issues in our Nairobi -surely one of the greenest & yet at the same time most crowded in this Africa.
KARIBU!