By Abigael Sum and Ally Jamah
Kenya: Wildlife authorities in Kenya and Tanzania are set to conduct a joint cross-border aerial census of wild animals in the Amboseli-Kilimanjaro and Magadi-Natron landscape.
The move comes against the backdrop of an alarming rise in poaching that has seen over 74 elephants killed this year while 384 elephants and 29 rhinos were lost to poachers last year alone in Kenya.
The exercise, funded by both Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), will cost more than Sh80 million.
KWS head of ecosystems and landscapes conservation Erastus Kanga said the exercise would determine the spread of human activities in the entire Amboseli ecosystem as well as identify threats in safeguarding the vast ecosystem that is threatened by human influence.
Degradation
“There has been tremendous developments in the entire Amboseli ecosystem over the last four decades. The fluctuating weather patterns compounded by human actitivities have resulted to environmental degradation and loss and contraction of corridors and dispersal areas, hence causing sporadic changes in wildlife populations,” he said.
During a similar survey in the Amboseli ecosystem in 2010, 25 wild animals and two bird species were counted. Zebras with a population of approximately 13,740 individuals was the most numerous wild species in the entire survey area followed by Grant’s gazelle (8,362).
Others include the common wildebeest were (7,240), Maasai giraffe (4,164), eland (1,992), Maasai ostrich (1,461) and the African elephant (1,420), among others.
