Elephants, Other Iconic Animals Dying in Kenya Drought

Nick Wadhams, National Geographic News 21 Sep 09;

More than sixty African elephants and hundreds of other animals have died so far in Kenya amid the worst drought to hit the country in over a decade, conservationists announced.

So-called "long rains" that usually fall in March and April failed this year, and some areas have now been in drought conditions for almost three years. No one knows why the drought has been so bad. Many attribute it to global warming, but others say it is simply part of the long-term weather cycle in East Africa.

Since January at least 38 dead elephants have been found in the area around the Laikipia highlands and Samburu National Reserve, officials said.

In addition 30 baby elephants have been reported dead so far this year in Amboseli National Park, farther south

Some of the animals died of thirst, while others starved due to lack of vegetation or succumbed to diseases or infections due to weakened immune systems, according to wildlife officials

Many of Kenya's other iconic species—including lions, crocodiles, zebra, and wildebeests—are also suffering in drought conditions and could start dying at worrisome rates, wildlife officials say.

"The elephants are very smart animals," said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of the Nairobi-based nonprofit Save The Elephants. "But I think they are going to die in large numbers, and that goes for the other grazers and browsers, too."

Helping Hands

Conservation officials have been working to protect some animals from the effects of the drought by feeding or relocating them.

At Mzima Springs in Tsavo West National Park, rangers have been laying out hay for hippopotamuses to eat.

The Kenya Wildlife Service has moved ten white rhinoceroses from Lake Nakuru to Nairobi National Park, in part because the parched land can't support the large animals.

And the Nairobi-based David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust reports that recently it has been bringing an average of seven baby elephants a month to its orphanage. Normally the facility receives seven elephants in a year.

Crops and Cattle

The drought has exacerbated a long-standing conflict between wildlife and the people who live near Kenya's protected lands.

Crop harvests were already expected to be low, because post-election violence in early 2008 prevented many farmers from planting in time.

The United Nations recently estimated that a million people in Kenya are under threat of famine.

Meanwhile, cattle herders have been illegally driving their animals deep into Kenya's parks and reserves in search of water and grazing land.

From the air, massive cattle tracks can be seen leading deep into the Masai Mara National Reserve, and the Kenya Wildlife Service reported that rangers recently pushed ten thousand cattle out of Tsavo West.

"We have been negotiating with the communities to allow wildlife to have a bit of peace in the parks where there is a little water, but there aren't hard and fast measures we can take," wildlife service spokesperson Paul Udoto said.

"It's really been a body blow to our animals."

Wildlife Attacks

Some conservationists fear that cattle herders might even start killing wildlife if they continue to be denied access to water and grazing land inside national parks.

"People are asking why should they not be allowed to go into the park in case of unusual circumstances like now?" said Dickson Kaelo, a program officer at BaseCamp Foundation, a community conservation group outside Masai Mara.

"If they aren't allowed to, why should they allow wildlife to come into their land just for the benefit of the tourism industry?"

Any wildlife attacks would be more bad news for species that have already seen drastic declines.

One recent study, for example, found that wildlife numbers both inside and outside Kenya's parks have fallen by 40 percent since the 1970s.

People in Kenya are now waiting for October, when the shorter rainy season normally begins. But some experts worry that Kenya's water woes aren't likely to end anytime soon.

"I think it's probably the worst drought we've seen for quite a long time," Douglas-Hamilton said. "And it's not over, not by a long chalk."

Kenya hit by killer drought
Peter Greste, BBC News 21 Sep 09;

It was not hard to find the dead elephant.

The stench of the rotting carcass made it easy to track down in the sparse bush. A young male - barely four years old and still an infant by elephant standards - lay on its side in the sand by a river.

Around its feet, the sand had been cleared in small arcs - signs of the animal's thrashing as it struggled to stand and survive.

But there was nothing to eat. Nothing. On the ground, not a blade of grass existed, every green shoot had been stripped from the trees.

For Iain Douglas Hamilton, from the conservation organisation Save The Elephants, it was a heartbreaking sight.

"In all my 12 years here, I've never seen anything as bad as this," he said.

"The last long rains [in April] failed completely, and we haven't had a proper wet season for at least three years. If the rains fail in October and November, we'll go into total crisis. I can't even begin to imagine how awful that would be."

Left rotting

In all, Mr Hamilton's organisation has counted at least 24 elephants that have died over the past two months across Samburu alone.

And like most droughts, it is the old and the young that go first.

That is a worrying trend for the conservationists.

The losses on their own would not have much of an impact on the region's elephant populations, but when the old matriarchs die it is potentially devastating.

"If you get a large-scale mortality, and you get a lot of old matriarchs going, you lose the memory banks. That's the lessons the matriarchs have learned from their own mothers about things like where to go for water," Mr Hamilton said.

"If a matriarch dies before those lessons have been handed down, and the new head of the family makes a mistake in a drought like this, its potentially very serious for the entire group."

This drought, of course, is not just about elephants. But they are an indicator species.

What happens to them points to trouble right across the spectrum.

Other less drought-resistant animals like buffalo, warthog, hippopotami and certain species of antelope have been hit hard.

Crocodiles have been forced to migrate sometimes many kilometres in search of water.

Only the predators and scavengers are doing well. In good times, any dead animal would be surrounded by hungry lions, hyenas and vultures. Now most are simply left to rot in the sun. The scavengers simply cannot consume all the meat littering the bush.

Ominous warning

A few kilometres from the first elephant carcass, David Daballen, a researcher with Save the Elephants, found another dead male. This one was the victim of poaching.

The carcass lay on its chest, its legs spread like a spatchcocked chicken - clear evidence, according to Mr Daballen, that it had been shot.

"It was probably killed with a couple of bullets in its head. It would have collapsed where it stood," he said.

The ivory had been hacked out of the 10-year-old male, but more disturbingly, each of its feet and its trunk had been removed - clear signs that it had been butchered for meat.

"Normally you only find poaching much further from where it is now, and it looks like people are desperate and going for anything, including the meat. This is not quite normal for people to hunt for elephant meat," Mr Daballen said.

The clash between elephants and humans also now extends more broadly than it might otherwise have done in better times.

The Ewasa Nyiro river runs along the Samburu National Park boundary.

The park rangers say it is only ever dry for a few weeks or perhaps a month out of every year. Now, it is a sea of bleached sand, and it has been that way for most of the past six months.

Each day, the elephants listlessly amble their way to a series of waterholes on a bend in the river.

Local herders dug the wells - perhaps two metres deep - for themselves and their livestock. But as long as the elephants are there, the herders have to wait their turn.

An old lady is philosophical: "We have to live with the elephants out here. When they come, they destroy the wells and fill them with sand, but what can we do? We all share this place."

But she also gave an ominous warning.

"If the rains fail, we are all in trouble. It's not just going to be the animals dying. We'll die too, and it's not going to take long."