What to do when years of conservation efforts, millions of dollars for habitat protection completely fail to achieve the desired results?
That’s what wildlife managers of the Masai Mara region in Southern Kenya must now be asking themselves. The outcomes of a recent wildlife count revealed that the world-renowned reserve lost over two thirds of its mammal populations. The numbers of impala, warthog, giraffe, topi and Coke’s hartebeest declined by 70% within the reserve, outside the situation is even worse. Almost no wild animals are left outside the reserve borders. Particularly shocking is the population development of wildebeest and zebra. They are migratory species which used to travel between the Serengeti and the Masai Mara in great numbers. Wildebeest migration now involves 64% fewer animals than in the 80s, according to the recent assessment, and wildebeest which reside within the Masai Mara during the rainy season have almost completely disappeared.
Illegal wildlife hunting is one of the major threats faced by park managers in the Albertine Rift such as here in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda (Photo, JR/ARCOS)
How could this happen, despite growing number of tourists, despite the reserve’s world reputation? The causes are not new: In fact scientist found that the only mammals whose numbers had grown are – livestock species. Despite herding being illegal in the reserve, the distribution and density of cattle, sheep and goat have increased dramatically. Their grazing displaces the natural fauna and raised the pressure of competition upon wild animals during the droughts of the recent years. Poaching is also still a major problem at the Masai Mara; over 1 500 poachers had been arrested, more than 17 300 snares collected by rangers between 2001 and 2010.
With the animal population decline obviously being a human-caused trend, it becomes clear that the conservation community needs to pay more attention to the Masai Mara people, mainly Masai. The expansion of settlements and livestock herding needs to be regulated and the poaching issue seemingly needs a different, more effective response then arrests and snare collection. Above all the alarmingly rapid decline in animal population, which went almost unnoticed until now, shows how crucial species monitoring is to keep up Masai Mara’s reputation as a premier wildlife spot.
For more information on the Masai Mara wildlife crash please read BBC Nature.
