Diary of a Primatologist: Shimba Hills

I recently went to a talk hosted by the Shimba Support Group (SSG) on the Sable Antelope (Sable) of Shimba Hills National Reserve (SHNR). There are only 60 Sables left (increasing from 56 in 2012) and they all reside in the Shimba area; therefore at high risk of exctintion.

On arriving this out of place sofa was very comfortable

The talk was held at the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) office in Diani in what appeared to be an outside storage area. I met up with Shazaad (chair of SSG) and examined the interesting drawings on the wall; including a house, Barrack Obama, what appeared to be Wayne Rooney and fittingly a Sable. We then took our seats (some chairs were better than others) and waited for the talk to being.

KWS support the SSG and it was held at their office in Diani

Meeting up with the SSG Chair, Shazaad

Nope I did not choose this chair

Sable drawing on the wall

Shazad opened the talk and was talking about how there is “to little emphasis on the Sable and that more is put on the big animals like the Elephant, Lion and Rhino. If we are not careful the Sable could be lost forever and that would be a big blow for Kenya in the fight for wildlife conservation”.

The main talk was then underway and was delivered by two SSG committee members Ayesha and Esme as well as Nathan from KWS, who as an active ranger within SHNR. It began with basic facts about the Sable like:

There are five subspecies of the Sable and Kenya has the Roosevelt Sable (Hippotragus niger roosevelti).
Classed as endangered in Kenya, but the IUCN has it as least concern because it lumps it together with the other sub species, except the critically endangerd Giant Sable.
Males are black in colour with the females & young a chestnut brown.
Male & female both have horns reaching 81-165cm & 61-102cm respectively
Typical in herds of 20-25 with a dominant bull, cows, sub adult females and young bulls usually below 24 months.
The young bulls group together in bachelor herds until they reach 4 or 5 to look for their own group.
One dominant female will lead the herd and will usually be the oldest, healthiest & darkest in colour.

Then they moved on to the threats facing the Sable in Shimba, the main ones being:

Inbreeding, Poor Habitat, Malnutrition (apparently the soil is lacking in calcium & phosphate), poaching, farming including livestock grazing.

And the main challenges:

Security, monitoring, diversifying the population of the Sable.

Some good news is that the new wildlife act that was introduced this year to Kenya now classes the Sable as an endangered species. This means the penalties for poaching them is similar to elephants with a fine of 1 million KES; we will wait to see how effective this is in being implemented.

This talk was followed by one from Dadley Tsiganyiu Deputy/Community Warden of SHNR. He repeated some information, but concentrated more on how we must include the local community in any action to protect the Sable going forward. They are the ones who will truly decide if this species survives or is lost from Kenya forever. Problems like logging, charcoal burning, firewood collection and farming can all be made more sustainable. If more education is put into these communities and their local skills, like wood carving, are used effectively they can become a resource; not a problem. The big challenges are poverty, illiteracy, misinformation and that they see benefits as short term materialistic items, rather than long term conservation.

There were a lot of questions asked towards the Warden and some underlining anger as to why they are not aggressively marketing SHNR, as well as the dwindling wildlife numbers like the Giraffe and Elephants. Shazaad made a point that in previous years when it was marketed a lot more the visitor rate (therefore income generation) went up greatly. This provides local jobs and vital income to support the staff and communities within the park.

The Warden did say that unfortunately the “conservation in Kenya is more political and that is the main problem”; I don’t know a country that doesn’t have that problem.

From left to right, Dadley, Nathan, Esme, Ayesha, Shazaad.

One thing that is clear is that there is a long way to go and we must all work together and include everyone is the Sable is to be saved.

The new KWS Sable strategy can be viewed HERE.

Read more about SHNR HERE.

The Shimba Support Group is unique in that it works in direct partnership with the KWS and so can have a huge impact on the work at SHNR. If you are interested in finding out more about them or want to help out more information is available HERE.

If you visit Kenya then please do pop down to the South coast and check out this beautiful little gem that has a lot more to offer than you may think. If you don't believe me check out my own safari pictures:

Warthog

Buffalo

The beautiful waterfall at the end of a lovely walk

Young Giraffe

Adult Giraffe

One of the terrific wardens

The most fantastic view of the sun going down over Shimba Hills Nature Reserve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can see all my photos of my time in Kenya on my Flickr page here -http://bit.ly/1dpb3gd

Or on my facebook page here - www.facebook.com/diaryofaprimatologist

Disclaimer:

"The views and opinions expressed in the Diary of a Primatologist blog (except guest posts) are purely my own and are not in any way linked to any organisations I may represent or work with unless otherwise stated. All photos are my own unless otherwise stated and a source will be provided where other photos are used. If they are your photos and you would like them removed please just ask. The author retains full copyright for all content and photos and written permission is required before their use. The owner of the site is not liable for any content accessed through links posted."

Month four has been a fantastic time in my African adventure, but that time is certainly going fast as I now only have 8 weeks left till I head on home.

This month kicked off with the amazing weekend of beach games, drinking, music and beautiful sunshine called “Diani Rules”; see some photos and read more about it here.

Diani Rules team photo

Hugo chased away a baboon who tried to attack Chip, he is one brave man and you can read about his troop here. I learnt how to cook Kenyan cuisine with our resident chef for an article on Vegan food in Kenya; so many of their dishes are naturally vegan like Sukuma Wiki and Kachumberi. The old school gym at Colobus Conservation is getting some use, I am talking a log as a bench, and iron bars with cement as weights.

Hugo (left) standing up to the baboon (right)

Omari with some traditional Kenyan food

The 2014 Brazil World Cup is underway and watching the games on the beach is great, however the games are on quite late meaning sleep has had to take a back seat lately. It is really interesting watching the games with so many different nationals; we have Dutch, German, French, Swiss, Ivory Coast, English, Chile, Brazil, Belgium, Spain, Nigeria and USA.

However, the biggest highlight of the month and of my entire trip is definitely the visiting of my parents and girlfriend Lara. Seeing them arriving at the airport was fantastic and the next ten days was a great holiday. We visited Kaya Kinondo (a sacred forest) and learnt about how you can use the different plants for medicine, use strong vines for swings and visited a traditional village.

Sniffing leaves that help clear sinesus

Swinging on a vine

Visiting a traditional Kenyan village

I went on Safaris in Shimba Hills and Tsavo East National Parks where I walked to a waterfall and saw the rare Sable antelope, Masai Giraffes, Elephants, Lions, Buffalo, lots of herd animals and colourful birds. It was an incredible experience and so wonderful to see all these majestic animals in their natural habitat.

Learning how to collect fecal samples for parasite analysis also featured this month.