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AFRI ~NA"LAKENAKURUwas Oncethe greatest flamingo lake on earth. ~.ot 80

world-shattering perhaps-still it did provide Kenya a certai dis-tinction and the odd advertisement to help sustain an annu 100million dollar benefit from tourism.

Now the birds have flown, and no-one quite knows why. Least of all th poorMinister for Tourism and Wildlife, Hon. Mathews Ogutu, who is to an xtentunjustly blamed. But public opinion demands that he follows the birds to far-away Lake Rudolf, there to sit on his own little boat and contemplate pinkalbatross.

The demand comes not from those "interfering foreigners" of the conservationagencies and the Press, but from his own people through their representativesin Parliament. To an extent it was Maasai-Ied, but even so the MPs had afit ofnational conscienceon the wildlife situation; called for Ogutu's resignation,and for a Select Committee to investigate his administration. The innocent,sacrificial goat of Kenya rituals often remains mute, but Mr Ogutu registereda solitary, plaintive "no" to the Private Member's Motion.

In fact, he'll probably keep his entrails, if not his office, because constitutionallythe government need not comply with the MPs' vote. Nonetheless it was asurprising demonstration of the democratic process in Kenya and a welcomepublic outcry against wildlife mismanagement and destruction. Perhapsthe government, especially the Treasury and the Attorney-General's office,willyet be sympathetic to the MPs wishes-stranger things have happened inKenya than self-examination through a government Commission of Inquiry.

Nakuru, would not be the only issue, nor the most scandalous. But it's a goodexample of what everyone is complaining about....

The facts are that a small, ugly factory close to the lake is capable of dischargingfive tons of copper-based pollution a year-and scientists have determined thateight tons of copper in the lake will kill it. Other experts, this time governmentpeople, claim that the factory is a potential risk to humans, let alone to the"priceless heritage" and the current profit of Lake Nakuru National Park.

Government Ministries have protested; so has the Press; and now the MPs.WWF, which spent a quarter of its million dollar conservation grants to Kenyaon preserving Nakuru has suspended further aid. The Germans are shelvingtheir two million dollar project to clean up the sewage outfall in the lake.

But none of it makes a blind bit of difference. The factory continues operation,and the Minister funks the issue-perhaps for political popularity.

Unfortunately for him, the issue is not his loyalty to government, but whetheror not the wildlife trust and multi-million business of tourism is being admin-istered with the same sanity and professional competence which distinguishKenya's government from that of the comic empires or socialist "heavens"in the neighbourhood.

The evidence is that Tourism and Wildlife is not a typical competent governmentoperation, and now that the people as well as the international communityare saying so, it cannot last much longer.

However, in the meantime, ivory continues to be moved around mysteriously;questions are still pending about the receipts from ivory exports; and the213 local curio shops are still bristling with tusks despite the Ministerial orderto clear stocks months ago.

An expensive, desperate, pathetic operation to translocate the remnants ofGrevy zebra from the north is planned; private funds have been raised to"rescue" Rothchild's giraffe from hamstringing; George Adamson weeps overSomali devastation of Kora; and poaching generally remains rampant.

The Minister rows with the trustees of the Utalii training College, finally sets upthe Wildlife Fund Trustees a year late; watches benignly the slightly alarmingperformance and ambition of his Kenya Tourist Development Corporation;and fails to announce the Civil Service decision on who is to head the Depart-ment of Wildlife Conservation and Management.

In all, ... there is Nakuru and plenty of other questions of some importance whichmight be asked by the MPs committee-but better, as we suggested, the govern-ment's own Commission.

Vol. 6 No4 January 1977Shs 8/-CONTENTSCoverMaasai moran ... by John Eames

Pages 10-11Elephant Twins at Manyara; photo-reportby lain and Oria Douglas-HamiltonPages IZ-13Rescue for the Rothchild's-authors Jockand Betty Leslie-Meville climax an appealto translocate a herd of endangered giraffePages 14-16A Threat to the Southern Sudan-AndrewFedders reports on a controversial canalproject which could affect life in the SuddPage 17-18

Kora is Dying-George Adamson reportsappalling destructionPage 19-20The "Pokot" from Beverly Hills-ElizabethMeyerhoff describes a day in her lifeamong the pastoral PokotCentre Section (pages i-viii)The Society Notes, compiled by TedNorris; World Wildlife Fund-Kenya Notesand Elsa Wild Animal Appeal Notescompiled by Ellis Monks; and WildlifeClubs of Kenya Notes compiled by SandyPrice.Pages 21-22The Nakuru Flamingo Controversy-eco-logist Chris Tuite who recently completeda study of the lake, part-funded by theSociety, speculates on the reasons for theflight of the flamingo.Pages 23-24Conserving Taqzania's Parks-an appealby Parks' Director, Derek Bryceson, M.P.Page 24Edward Rodwell's columnPage 25Letters to the EditorPages 27-29The Rift Valley Romans-a photo-reportby John EamesPage 30Mother Courage-dramatic pictures byNigel DundasPages 30-31Book reviews

Editor: JOH N EAME5; Production Editor:BRYAN ORCHARD; publl.h.r. Marketing &Publishing Ltd.; .dltorl.1 .ddr •••• NationHouse, Tom Mboya St. P.O. Box 49010. Nairobi,Kenya; T.I. 21341 ; 337891/2; Advertl.lng..ubscrlptlon .nd .ccounts: Nation House.Tom Mboya Street. P.O. Box 49010, NairobiTel. 337891/2; Cabl.s: Nationwise, Nairobi."Africana" incorporates the Ouart.rly R.vlawof the East African Wild L1feSocl.tyand Qu.rt.rly Not.s from World Wlldllf.Fund-K.ny •• Advertisingrepresentatives overseas: USA: Sullivan GrecoInc.•Suite 5·6. 1030 Nonh Stst. St. Chicsgo.J11. 60610 (Tel:301943· 7072) ; U.K.: OverseasPublicity Ltd.• 214 Oxford Street.London W1NOEA(Tel: 01 636 8296/7)

event, they could not have survived.In mid-September, when the twins

were only a month old, "JEZ-F.U." verynearly lost Hera.

During a normal foot patrol near Ndalain the Central region of the Park, Mhojaand another ranger, Dennis, heard thenoise of breaking bushes and gallopinghooves on stones at the bottom of anescarpment. They then saw buffaloesstampeding into an acacia forest leavinga line of dust behind them.

Mhoja knew something was wrong- andran towards the escarpment to beconfronted with elephants running downthe same path, trumpeting with heads lowand tails high in the air, as they crashedthrough the bushes in a state of panic.

He recognised Curie, closely .followedby Pili and her elder son. Then he noticedHera running but staggering from timeto time.

She had a big red wet patch on her sideand was being helped by Yusta and heryoung son Kali, who seemed to be holdingher up each time she faltered.

A··little way behind them ran Bahatiand the twins, all heading for the safety ofthe acacia woodlands.

Mhoja followed the family and as theycame to a stop, he saw that Hera had abig wound on her side and that Yusta'strunk and face were covered in blood.She was touching the wound and stood

very close to her mother who was losing alot of blood and still seemed very un-steady on her legs.

Mhoja and Dennis followed the trail ofblood some way up the escarpment, andsoon found the two poachers who hadcome right into the park, and had placedthemselves in the safety of a tree and spea-red Hera as she went past. Fortunately, thespear went high in her back. The poachersfled as soon as they saw the rangers.

The rangers ran on up the hill, untilthey came to a small village where thepoachers tracks led directly to two huts,but were told that no-one was inside andthat the owners of the huts had left.

Mhoja and Dennis returned to base,reported the incident to HQ, and then for

the next two weeks went with JohnScherlis in search of Curie and particularlyHera.

But Curie and her family had vanishedinto the safety of the thickets of .thesouthern sector of the park, and hid inEndebash for over two weeks, duringwhich time Hera recovered.

At the beginning of October, the family"JEZ-F.U." and the twins re-appearedat the Bagayo river.

Hera's wound had healed, though it wasstill swollen and slightly damp, and she stilllooked quite thin. The twins were well,

Ibut looked undernourished and tired aswell.

FUND-RAISINGTO RESCUETHE ROTHSCHILDS

byBetty and Jock Leslie-Melville

. I

JOCK and BETTY LESLIE-MELVILLE are authors, lecturers and TVpersonalities in the States, and safari operators for Percival Tours inKenya. They arealso giraffe benefactors, having just raised more than $6,000 to move an endangeredherd of the rare Rothschilds sub-species to the sanctuary of Lake Nakuru NationalPark. The operation is scheduled for early in the new year with the Leslie-Melville'sworking with trapper Tony Parkinson and Kenya's Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife.But there is still a need for funds, and donations would be much appreciated-c/o"Africana", with cheques made out to the "J.D. Leslie-Melville Giraffe A/c."

Rothchilds12

THERE has been no shortage of advice:"Get a team of crack shots with dart guns.0 sneak up on a herd and tranquilisetwenty of them in a single salvo," oneenthusiast told us, "then load them intothree or four large trucks-squashing themup tight like cattle so that they don't fallover-and let them out four hours laterin Nakuru-it shouldn't take more than aday and would hardly cost a thing. Don'tbother about permission or anything-just do it."

The telephone rings again, a girl thistime. "My film friend and I have had afantastic idea. Get the G.S.U. (Kenya'sparamilitary force) to stop the traffic on theroad for the hundred miles between Soyand Nakuru and drive the entire Rothschildherd along it." (This adviser was notjoking but relaying a carefully consideredplan.) "At night they could encircle themin a patch of bush or trees so that theycould feed. At twenty miles a day it wouldtake five days and be a great trainingexercise."

Since giraffe cannot be moved likecows-they will break through any cordonand have been known to jump cleanover cars to get away unless you cansomehow persuade them that you aredriving them to where they want to go--we didn't think the main road idea toopractical, but the master planner persisted."Well, drive them across country then."Wet blankets that we are, we pointed outthat there were actually farms and fencesand forests and standing crops and railwaylines-petty annoyances like that-betweenEldoret and Nakuru.

To be fair, though, on a smaller scalesuch a driving operation was attemptedfifteen years ago with the object of movingabout forty Rothschild giraffe from theMcCall farm at Kitale to an adjacentvalley where there were other giraffeliving in a wild situation. Local farmerswith polo ponies and retired racehorsesjoined thirty tribal police from theNorthern Province mounted on Somaliponies, and for two days they wheeledand circled and charged the luckless giraffe,galloping after them over the roughterrain sustaining broken collar bones andcracked skulls, until they had succeededin pushing the herd down a steep escarp-ment to the safety of their new sanctuary.Men and horses dragged themselves hometo . recover from their wounds and thefollowing morning the entire giraffe herd,plus several more who had joined themin the valley below, had all clambered upthe escarpment again and were happilydestroying things around the farm asusual.

It is generally accepted that theRothschild are a sub-species of giraffefalling somewhere between the Reticulated

and the Maasai, and their characteristicsinclude light coloured socks and thedevelopment in older males of two extra"horns" behind the main horns, whichtogether with the prominent frontal bumphas sometimes led them to be called theFive Horned Giraffe. Originally theycould be found from Baringo (where asharp eyed member of the renownedbanking family on safari seventy years agofirst spotted the differences and generouslyimparted his name) right up into theeastern part of Uganda, but as agriculturedeveloped in the Uasin Gishu and TransNzoia they were either ·wiped out ortrapped in little enclaves on farms. By thelate 1940S the only significant concentration

remained on Alexander Douglas's ranchwhich lay between Eldoret and Soy.

The Game Department in those dayswas in a dilemma (nothing ever changes)because while they wished to preservethem there was no mechanism then tocompensate farmers whose crops andfences were damaged by wild animals,and their only recourse therefore was toshoot the offending beasts when complaintsbecame too strident. In the end old manDouglas and an even more elderly Col.Swinton-Home, who was the GameWarden for the area, arrived at a pragmaticformula whereby Douglas would buy thegiraffe on his place for Shs. 10/- each andit would then be up to him to argue with

his neighbours about damage. Douglasloved the giraffe and was determined topreserve as many as he could, not caringthat they made his ranching less easy.When he died he left the place to hisdaughter Delia and she and her husbandDavid Craig have sustained the Rothschildherd until the present day. Now the ranchis to be sold to 600 settlers and co-operativefarmers and there is no way that agdcultureof that kind can be done in harmony withgiraffe.

Government has been aware for someyears that a hiatus would ultimately ariseand an ecological survey of Soy and Lake

Continued on page. :z:z13

JONGLEI is just another small bad drainage system ... will be solved byvillage in the southern Sudan, but SUDAN appreciable reduction of the river floodits name has been appropriated levels through drainage of about IS per

cent* of the excess water into the canal;for a potentially great ecological (e) opportunities of more pasture landsand social disaster-the jonglei in the dry season will be available for aCanalProject.Whatmakesjonglei growing cattle population in the area;

'11 "fi .. . (f) clean and sufficient water of the canalVI age Slgnl cant ISItSconvenient will be available at all times .•.. "1

location by the Bahr el jebel, We now know what the Jonglei Canalwhere the main channel of the Project is and what it is meant toriver curves away to the west, and accomplish, what its intended benefits

. . th I are. But what about the environmentalits proximity to e centra and social effects of the Project? Will theswamplands of the Sudd. It is Project "result in extinction of livestock,an ideal departure point for the disappearance of fish for a long journeyCanal Project. What makes the into Egypt; migration of wildlife, thejonglei CanalProJ'ect significant is introduction of the desert into the area, in

the evacuation of the populations in thethe subject of this paper. area and their resettlement in far distant

The Sudd is a vast papyrus swamp. areas ?'2 The Sudanese themselves haveIt is a unique inland sea of primordial asked at least some of the right questions,ooze, of Nile and other river waters, of but I, for one, am not satisfied with theprolific masses of floating and choking answers, and by the absence of evidenceaccumulations of vegetable matter, of to support them. Sweeping assurancesflocks of birds as dense as clouds of are not as convincing as a few concretemosquitoes, of a profusion of fish, of facts.strange reptiles and mammals. The Yet we are not given facts about theswamplands are home to the many peoples possible effects of the Project. Instead,who nurture their cultures within them. we receive assurances based on unfoundedThe Sudd, then, is neither wasteland nor followed in 1959. According to this the optimism and wishful thinking:land wasted; it abounds with life. Sudan and Egypt were to co-operate on The fish will be there for anyone to

It is more than the permanent swamps. future projects and in the sharing of Nile exploit; livestock will be there andIt encompasses flatlands and depressions water. Then, however, the civil war in the will probably increase ... ; none ofliable to flooding and sandy ridges which Sudan dispersed the committees and the geographers I 'have consulted hasrising waters transform into islands. The shelved their proposals and plans. confirmed the stories of the desertarea of the Sudd swamplands varies with So much for the abbreviated back- springing up from there in thethe seasons, sprawling across a maximum ground of the Jonglei Canal Project. Jonglei area to replace the sudd;of between eighty and one hundred What of its present status? Mter the the crocodile, hippopotamus, nilethousand square kilometres during July cessation of hostilities in 1972 the com- monitor will probably remain-if theyto November, the wettest months, the time mittees reassembled and their proposals wish. Antelopes will still continue toof overflowing and flooding, and shrinking and plans reappeared as immediate threats drink from the banks of the Nile.3to a minimum of some twenty thousand to the Sudd and its inhabitants. Works- There is, however, the astonishingsquare kilometres during the dry months. on pilot irrigation schemes, for example- admission that "Wildlife will, in the end,The waters rise and fall in an ancient are already in progress. By far the largest be reduced, because of the pressures ofrhythm, and the flora and the fauna- of them, the actual construction of the modern development and humanincluding man: the Dinka, the Nuer, Canal, is scheduled to commence in 1977. population increase."4 That is indeedthe Shilluk and others-of the region Old proposals have been revised and the predictable. Little else is.have adapted to and live with this measured plans are now more modest. The diversion/ According to Mr. Peter Hayes of theflow and flood and ebb in harmony. drainage/navigation Canal will be about Environment Liaison Centre in Nairobi,

To outsiders the Sudd has always been three hundred kilometres long, beginning "no real environmental assessment hasan Obstacle. It discouraged two centurions at Jonglei vilage in the south and running been done, only 'cosmetic' research."dispatched by the Emperor Nero to to the mouth of the Sobat River in the Incredible. Worse, what research hassearch for the source of the Nile. It north. It will be fifty-two metres wide been done has been concerned withcontinued to discourage explorers and and four metres deep. It will have a questions such as the amounts of D.D.T.travellers for nearly two thousand years capacity of twenty million cubic metres that will need to be used! That puts thosethereafter until eventually Sir Samuel of water a day (in contrast to the originally of us who are opposed to the Project inBaker succeeded in hacking his way proposed fifty-five million). And the rate the same spot as those who are itsthrough. An Egyptian expedition also of flow will be 0.95 metres per second. proponents: we lack the facts which asucceeded in 1874, and another in 1880. A smaller canal for irrigation will be proper environmental assessment couldBut it was only early in our own century excavated parallel to and on the western have provided. But we do have recoursethat British engineers led by Major side of the diversion/drainage/navigation to common sense and, to some extent,Malcolm Peake created a permanent Canal. It will have a capacity of five to the examples of past projects.channel. million cubic metres of water a day. Let us consider the hydrological and

The idea of building a canal so that the Ultimately it will serve a projected two climatological aspects of the ProjectNile would bypass this riot of inconvenient and one half million acres of agricultural first. The Sudanese and the Egyptians.vegetation-of rearranging the river and land. reckon that the Canal will conserve waternature, was first proposed in 1897. An all weather ramp road will be built now lost through evaporation. Common

Then, starting in 1904, the Egyptian along the eastern bank of the Canal. sense dictates that the issue is more.Government initiated serious studies of complex.the Equatorial Nile. Surveys were made Advantages Calculations show that about 27and data collected. A summary of the milliard (109) cubic metres (that isstudies was compiled in 1946, and plans Those are the basic facts about the 27 Km3!) of water enter the swampsto control and regulate the Nile from Jonglei Canal Project supplied by the but only 14 milliard m3 emerge.Lake Victoria on down past the Sudd were Sudanese. They tell us what the Project This means that 13 milliard m3 arepresented. In the same year the Egyptian is. The Sudanese also supply a' list of 'lost' through seepage and evaporation/Government submitted these proposals to "advantages," telling us what the Project transpiration. It is not known as yetthe Sudan Government for consideration, is.meant to accomplish, what its intended exactly what happens to this water,and the Governor General of the Sudan benefits are. These are summarised as but what is certain is that theestablished the Jonglei Committee and the follows: "(a) needed water for development evaporation (estimated at 7 milliardJonglei Investigation Team whose task in the Sudan after 1980 will be provided m3 ••• ) will fall somewhere as rain,

. it was to inquire into the effects of the by the canal, (b) the project will provide and that the seepage (6 milliard m3)proposals on the interests of the riverain and accelerate major economic and social flows into the reservoir of the under-inhabitants. The Investigation Team development in the Southern Region ground table and will emerge some-completed its task in 1954 and presented through the financing of mechanized where. It is almost certain that thisits findings and recommendations in a mixed farming ... ; (c) the project will contributes to the fact that wells arereport called "The Equatorial Nile Project 'provide cheap and short communication 30% is a more accurate figure.and its effects on the Anglo-Egyptian routes by river and road.... " Then .Sudan." The Nile Water Agreement "(d) the perennial problems of floods and Contmued on page_I6LEFT: The Nuba-by Leni Riefenstahl who recently produced for Collins two magnificent books on the people of the Sudan-to be reviewedin the next issue of Africana. ~

Perhaps UNEP's Mustafa Tolbaand others should think againbefore meddling with the Nile.

unexpectedly shallow in North Sudan(and it is thought possible that groundwater as far as the Sahel zone may beeffected).'';

And naturally the possibility that rainfallin the Sudd itself will be reduced is veryreal.

Hydrological and climatological changeswill have an inevitable effect on the ecologyof the Sudd. If, as some experts think,irrigated agriculture has a higherevaporation rate than existing marshesand pools, then the effect on the ecologymay be catastrophic indeed. A chain-reaction in the eco-system could be rapid-and irreversible. From the insects whichwill no longer breed to play their roles aslinks in the pollination chains to theelephants which will lose their dry seasongrazing, the life of the Sudd is bound tosuffer. Fish will be dispossessed of theirbreeding grounds, the pools, and migratingfowl of a waystation. The very swampsthemselves may suffer death by desiccation.

Then there is the sociological aspect.What will happen to the people whoinhabit the swamplands? Their societies,economies and cultures are primarilypastoral, though they do engage inagriculture. Deprived of seasonal flooding,their grazing grounds will become barren.No fresh growths of grasses will springup to replace the old. Their migratoryroutes will be broken by the Canal andthe irrigation schemes, causing conflictsover grazing. If not resettlement, then ath~astsettlement will be forced upon them.Perhaps as many as three million peoplewill be affected and their societies,economies and cultures significantlyaffected.

The people will not even imbibe thebenefits of "(f) clean and sufficient water."Swamp drainage will not reduce thebreeding grounds of bilharzia and malariacarriers. Apparently "swamp drainageand associated irrigation provide morefavourable habitats for these parasites forthe simple reason that the water is better

oxygenated and more stable in its regime."6The Sudanese should know this from theGezira scheme; "bilharzia was virtuallyunknown but became widespread a fewyears after the inauguration of thescheme."7

Swamp drainage will have anothereffect on the health and well-being of thepeople. Their customary diet during thedry season consists mainly of fish. Theloss of the pools will result in the lossof a source of nutrition.

What is most important is that notraditional pastoralist to whom I havespoken on my visits to the southern Sudanwants any part of this Project or itsintended benefits. Two years ago I was atBor, not far south of Jonglei. I was thereto set up a safari camp for a small groupof scientists. The police insisted thatI park our vehicles inside the stationcompound at night. When I asked themwhy they replied -that otherwise the localpeople would burn them, because theysuspected us of being associated with theJonglei scheme!

But' opposition to the Project is notlimited to the traditional pastoralists inthe so-called bush. In October of 1974there were riots in Juba, the capital of theSouthern Region. They lasted for threedays and the cause was the Jonglei CanalProject.

Given all this opposition, not only byenvironmentalists but a.lsoby so many ofthe southern Sudanese themselves, whyis the project being pushed forward withsuch force? Who wants it? An officialspokesman says "although the RegionalGovernment did not initiate this projectand is not financing it, I wish to say thatalthough this is a Central Governmentproject, the Regional Government supportsit and stands for it."s Right. The Govern-ments, both Central and Regional, shedthe stigma of "underdevelopment" andacquire a prestige development project.Moreover, by constructing a prestigeproject in the Southern Region the Central

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- Government hopes to appease the in-habitants of that region for all thoseyears of armed hostilities, and not sobenign neglect.

Who else wants the Project and will gainfrom it? Foreign entrepeneurs want itand will gain enormous profits from it.The two main companies involved arethe Compagnie de Construction Inter-nationale and the Compagnie Francaised'Enterprises. There are other lessimportant groups involved.

Prestige and profit, a formidable pair.Who has the necessary power to opposethem? Obviously environmentalists' donot. Neither do the inhabitants of theSouthern Region. Who does that leave?It leaves the neighbouring countries. TheO.A.U. Charter requires that all surround-ing countries be officially advised of anyproject that could effect them adversely.This, insofar as I know, has not beendone. Yet the Jonglei Canal Project willeffect the entire Nile basin and the easternMediterranean Sea. Kenya could dry-upfrom Ethiopia down to the slopes of Mt.Kenya-and yet the Sudan and Egypthave kept the construction of the Canala bilateral act.

I am not surprised. The two countriesare overwhelmingly committed to theProject. They will employ all their influenceto protect it. When I went to the officesof the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme in Nairobi in search ofinformation-any information-about theJonglei Canal Project, a secretary did hervery best to assist me. No one else did.One of the two officials whQwas supposedto. be knowledgeable about the Projectflatly refused to see me (the other officialwas vaguely "away"). There was no printedmaterial available. Later I learned that thepresent head of UNEP is ail Egyptian, andthat "there is one hell of a political fight inprogress." .

This is the time, the last chance, to jointhe fight against the Project. Kenya maywell suffer from its adverse affects, andAfrica will be poorer for the loss of theSudd and the flora and the fauna and thecultures within it. Moreover, there arealternatives to the Project: utilization ofthe natural irrigation resulting fromseasonal flooding; the fisheries potential ofthirty thousand tons annually; wildlifemanagement and game cropping; pulpproduction from papyrus and otherplants; methane gas and fertiliser produc-tion from floating plants; and many otherproductive and practical developmentschemes requiring only imagination and arespect for the environment .

No one begrudges the Sudan and Egypttheir desire for development programs,but not at the cost of a potentially greatecological and social disaster that will notonly affect them but will also affect theirneighbours.

NOTESI H. E. Sayed Abel Alier, Statement to

the People's Regional Assembly on theProposedJonglei Canal, Executive Organfor the Development Projects in JongleiArea Publication No. I (Khartoum,January 1975), p. 18.

2 H. E. Sayed Abel Alier, p. 13.3 H. E. Sayed Abel Alier, p. 14.4 H. E. Sayed Abel Alier, p. 21.5 Environment Liaison Centre,

Transnational Environmental Implica-tions of the Jonglei Canal Project inSouth Sudan [working draft] (Nairobi),p.2.

6 Environment Liaison Centre, p. 5.7 Environment Liaison Centre, p. 5.8 H. E. Sayed A})el Alier, p. 21.

we arrived at ghat (large communalgrinding stone). My amount of maizeseemed irrelevant compared to theirswhich was being ground for this evening'sand tomorrow morning's meal for their:largefamilies.

However, I knew from experience thatI would be almost the last to finish, neverhaving mastered the rhythm and skillinvolved. In the initial step of crushingthe maize I still stop, finding it difficultto add two more kernels with my lefthand while simultaneously pounding itwith the stone in my right hand. Grindingis the same; kneeling as they lightlybrush more maize to be ground withoutinterrupting the swaying rhythm fromshoulder to wrist, even as they repeatgrinding their maize for the second time.

Women meet at ghat just to ama lokoi("eat history".) This keeps the rhythmgoing with a continuous flow of words,gestures and expressions, while they fixtheir calabashes, weave baskets, or doeach other's hair by twisting it intoindividual strands and then smearing itwith a dark oil.

The women were speaking so excitedlythat it took me some time to piece togetherwhat was being said. Apparently, lastThursday afternoon, the prophet'sneighbours heard him "witch" the rain.The prophet is known to be angry withthe people of this area, because theyhave brought money and beer to hisyounger brother asking him to make itrain. People believe it is the prophet whohas "closed" the rain, especially sincewe can often see it raining in the neardistance and this rain never reaches ourshambas.

The community has decided to takethe prophet to kokwo (court). Everyonewill go and the case will take hours todecide; the men and elders standingindividually as they try to persuade othersto their way of thought, first reviewingwhat happened and then deciding theappropriate fine. The women will sitin a group separate from the men. Itwould be impossible to measure thestrength of their persuasion, which isdone privately at home or through thegossip and rumours they spread andinitiate. The kokwo will be held onMonday; if, as one old woman said,"it doesn't rain".

The sun was setting when we finallywent to fetch water and begin our separateways home. We were climbing the hillwhen Kokok'siran who was carryingher bundle of firewood on her back,simply exclaimed, kelion ("legs !"). Herchildren trailed behind her; Chesakutcarrying the water, her son with his bowand arrows, her daughter (approximatelysix years old) carrying the baby on herback, the empty korop and the meat,Cherop with the maize on her head.

We reached my hut and put down ourloads to rest, they still had another hillto climb. Having smelt the meat, mycat appeared whining. Kokok'siran askedif she could borrow her for five days,as the rats were eating the maize in hertopot (ceiling used for storing grain in huts).I agreed and we put Chepusi and her dishin a bag, which Cherop happily carriedoff.

I began making the fire for the eveningmeal. A strong wind had begun and therain seemed to be moving towards ourshambas. Who knows what the power ofbelief entails? Instead, we only know ofour need and daily struggle for survival. .20

We were able to watch them for severalhours every day for the next two weeks.They moved in a set pattern along thescarp in the morning, reaching the Bagayoriver between I and 3 o'clock to drink, andthen slowly wound their way back alongthe shore and up onto the lower part ofthe scarp in the late evening.

The recent attack on Hera, notwith-standing, Curie and her family werecompletely unperturbed by the presenceof a stripped down Land-Rover withpeople in it always staying very close tothem. But however much they seemed toignore us, we never stayed too long so thatthe twins could rest with as littledisturbance as possible.

Manyara was very dry, and the busheswere stripped of their leaves by theelephants until most were only bare sticks.By nine in the morning it was hot, andCurie was usually to be found on theescarpment past the hot springs wherethe big Baobab tree stands out as a land-mark half way down the Park. Severalgulleys had to be crossed as well as theacacia woodlands before they got towater - and this would take them at leastfour hours.

Curie's daughter Pili, who was nearlysix months old, sucked at twigs, chewedbits of grass and soft leaves, but her maindiet was milk-and her mother hadplenty of it. Pili was therefore strong andfull of life, and during the slow walk alongthe escarpment, she would often ambleover to play with the twins. On the otherhand, Ramadhani and Rashidi were weakand slow-moving and spent most of themorning collapsed in a heap, betweenone walk and another, under the shade oftheir mother or a bush.

If they wouldn't play with Pili, she toowould join the little heap and lie on top ofthem, where they would always be watchedby Bahati who never hastened her pace andlet them sleep.

Bahati's brother, still too young to leavethe family, stayed near by and Yusta,the eldest daughter of Hera, stood guardor walked alongside so as not to leave thetwins alone if Bahati strayed from them.

Bahati's breasts were small compared toCurie's, perhaps because this was herfirst birth, and I wondered if she wouldhave enough milk for those two ever-hungry, ever-growing babies of hers,whom she would have to feed for at leastfive years.

They would nearly always suckle Bahatiat the same time, and we never noticedany special preference for a particularside or teat. On several occasions, I sawPili nudge her way in and feed from Bahatias well, but we never saw either of thetwins being fed by Curie. Sometimes theywould try to suckle Yusta or even oddteenagers who would come and visit them.

One day while we were watching thefamily moved from the shade of one acaciatree to another, at times only a few yardsaway, and each time they stopped for awhile, rested and kicked cool earth ontothe cupped end of their trunks to throwover themselves. The twins were justbeginning to learn how to loosen the earthwith their toe nails and how to suck updust in their trunks then blow it out againflicking the trunk back and forth.

Ticks seemed to cover all the elephantsat that time, probably because nearlyall the mud-holes had dried up and so thefamily. couldn't have a good wallow andthereafter rub themselves against trees andant-hills to squash the ticks.

The twins seemed to be always

scratching themselves. A couple of timesI actually saw them both rake the insideof their left leg with the flat of theirright foot like a dog. At this age he's arubbery, nimble little animal and will notlong be an elephant with the facility ofputting a foot onto the back of his head!

By the time the twins were near theBagayo river, the sun was overhead, heatwaves lifted from the ground-and Curiehurried her family onto the well-trampledelephant path right up to a pool under theshady trees.

The twins followed at the end of theline, heads and trunks down, tired andhot, and with eight little feet paddingas fast as they could go.

Curie and her family waded up streamto get to the clearest water when there wasa great splashing noise as if an elephanthad fallen into the water. But out came ahuge hippo splashing and snorting andlooking rather perplexed.

Bahati did not take her twins up-stream,but instead found a gentle slope withshallow water, where she and her babiescould drink-a serious business for them,and highly amusing for us.

As soon as the twins got to the edge ofthe water, they put their trunks down, butobviously had not acquired the techniqueof sucking up water, and lifting the trunkto let the water trickle into their throats.Instead they flicked their trunks back andforth to no good purpose, and walked intothe river until the} were completelysubmerged, drinking with their mouths asthey went in. All we could see were fourlittle eyes peeping above the level of thewater and two round grey heads lookinglike the tops of rocks.

Rashilii .actually managed to keep thetip of his trunk out of the water so hecould breathe, but Ramadhani was lesscapable. We saw a big bubble pop up infront of his eyes; then the trunk jerk out ofthe water for a quick suck of air, before itplunged back again as Ramadhani resumedhis submarine refreshment.

One day after drinking at the river, thefamily stopped under a tamarind tree to restand dust themselves. As also happens atthese moments, the elephants defaecatedand settled down for an hour of siesta.Whereupon the twins began eating from afresh round of dung - the first time,incidentally, I had actually seen thempicking up any form of food with theirtrunks and putting it into their mouths.

We have witnessed this "coprophagic"behaviour several times in the past and itmay be that young animals eat fresh dungas a means of introducing intestinalbacteria to their gut which will be essen-tial for their digestion.

In the evening, one could usually findCurie and her family on the lakeshoreeating the alkaline grass and interminglingwith many other families. Elephants arealways much more playful and less nervousin the evening, maybe simply because it iscool and they have eaten and drunk theirfill.

At this time, youngsters will race aboutfrom one family to another, and even thetwins are liable to be smelled, touched,playfully swiped and fondled by visitingjuniors and teenagers. These "social"evenings seem to be the only playful timesfor young Ramadhani and Rashidi - twocertain celebrities who otherwise have hada fairly harsh introduction to the seriousworld of elephants in East Africa.

Presidential warningon conservation

In his Speech to the Nation deliveredon Kenyana Day, President Kenyattastated:-

"I have requested many of you toensure proper use of our natural resources,our forests, rivers, the soil. Our entireenvironment must be carefully utilised,protected and conserved. To be able todo this, I am'directing that all GovernmentMinistries or Departments should, infuture, co-ordinate their planning activitiesmore effectively to ensure that our develop-mental efforts do not unnecessarily destroythe natural resources or, the environmenton which our future livelihood depends.I am directing also, that the existingenvironmental, protection, and conser-vation laws should be vigorously enforced,and new laws prepared where they do notexist."

The Society would like to take thisopportunity of congratulating HisExcellency for this great step forward.It is so typical of him to foresee the dangerswhich must lie ahead should our environ-ment be damaged too severely. We allknow it has received some very harshtreatment over recent years and, suchtreatment can easily be the cause of farreaching effects unless immediate actionis taken. The President's announcement istimely as, in many areas it is not too late-but we have fears where forests have beendecimated and on the edges of riversareas where soil conservation has beenignored.

The ever increasing demand for charcoalis the one factor which will destroy oneof our most important natural resources inthe form of trees.

Anti-poaching campaignWe would again like to thank

the many individuals andprivate companies, both inKenya and overseas, who sogenerously donated money tothe Society for anti-poaching.

One particular anti-poachingteam that the Society has beenfinancing has, during the first

nine months of 1976, recoveredtrophies to the value of$222,500 (Stg. £136,923 orK.S~s. 1,780,000). Fines andimprisonment have beenimposed on the culprits.

We are most grateful to youall for enabling the Society tohelp wildlife once more."

There's a wealth of choice items on sale in the Society's Gift Shopand Art Gallery.Everything from jewellery for the most sophisticated taste to thepopular key rings, ties and decals; carvings, batiks and artifacts;prints paintings and sculptures by leading national and internationalartists; wildlife books. journals and magazines; Christmas cardsand calendars.Original paintings and reproductions by David Shepherd. GuyCoheleach, Ralph Thompson, Talbot Kelly. Iris Darnton, JoyAdamson, Rena Fennessy, Bob Kuhn, Philip Lasz, Kim Brooksetc. Send for brochure/s on Christmas Cards Calendars; Prints;David Shepherd prints; and gift items for sale.

Annual SubscriptionsKShs. US$ [

Resident E.A. 60/-Ordinary Overseas 120/• 15·00 8.Family Membership 160/- 20.00 11.Corporate 1,000/- 125.00 67.

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Part protection ofSaiwa Swamp

I visited the Saiwa swamp at the endof November to see the new fencing,supplied by the Society, which had beenso ably. erected by Tim Harnley.

It has not been possible to fullycomplete this work as, at the south end,the boundary follows a stream bed intowhich fencing posts will not hold. In thisarea are a number ofSitatunga out of thePark, so by leaving this area unfenced,there is a chance that these animals willmove freely in and out of the park. Thefence has made an amazing difference tothe number of Sitatunga which, Mr.Jackson Makodongo, the Asst. Wardenin charge of the Park informed me, nowreach some 400 individuals. I saw anumber of small calves which I have notseen before, as they were previously beingkilled and taken by the surroundingfarmers' dogs.

The grass in the park is now lush-no longer being grazed by cattle or goats.

Mr. Jackson Makodongo has achieveda first class job in renovating the viewingplatforms. The form already finished havebeen completely rebuilt with new hard-wood timber from Mount Elgon. Threenew bridges have been completed sovisitors can cross without fear of fallingthrough into the swamp. More viewingplatforms are due to be erected on theeastern side of the swamp as soon as thebridge across has been completed.

It will be necessary for finances to beprovided by the Department to clear a firebreak along the boundary fence as, at

Continued on page if}

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Lambwe Valley and ShimbaHills Roan observations

Due to ever increasingcosts, we have had to.raise our membershiprates and delete some.

The new classes and ratesare shown in the SocietyNotes.

On a recent visit to the LambweValley Reserve, Mr. Arthur Mahasi;the acting Game Warden, was kind enough'to show me the Reserve. Since very fewpeople have so far visited the Reserve,my observations might be of interest toSociety members.

During a period of three hours, Mr.Mahasi was able to find three differentherds of roan. One, a herd of 17 maleswhich is unusually large for this species.Roan bachelor-herds, normally, do not

We do hope you will stillcontinue to support usin our work.

Tanzania raises National Parkentrance fees

have decided, with the approval of theMinister of Natural Resources andTourism, to raise the fees payable byvisitors.

In order to meet the rising costs ofrunning and developing the National Parksand of the greatly increased anti-poachingmeasures and operations. The Board ofTrustees of the Tanzania National Parks,

First ScheduleFees for the period commencing at arrival and ending after 24 hours on the next

following day, or part of such period and for each following period of twenty-four hoursor part thereof, spent in the Park:--

A. Permit for theEntry of each person(a) above the age of 16 years(b) between the age of 3 years and 16 years(c) below the age of 3 years

Shs·5Shs.2/50Free

Shs. 30 (ALL PARKS)Shs. 15(ALL PARKS)Free

B. Permit for each motor vehicle (24 hours or part thereof)Non-Foreign Foreign

(a) Tare weight less than 2000 kilos 10 60(b) Tare weight more than 2000 kilos 60 120·Foreign Motor vehicle is any vehicle coming from outside Tanzania and bearingRegistration other than Tanzanian.

(c) Permit for resident vehicle(vehicle kept in or within the park) Shs. 10 per vehicle.

c. Permit for CampingFor any period between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. in anyone period of 24 hours:-

Residents Non-Residentsro·oo 30.00On established Camping Site

In places other than camping sitesat the discretion ofWarden:-

(c) Children between the age of 3 and 16 yearshalf rate in both cases and below 3 yearsof age2 bona fide servants for each visitorEach servant in excess of 2

FreeFree

FreeFree10·00

D. Permit for the landing of AircraftPermit for landing of any aircraft-Shs. 30/-.

E. Fees for the service of an official guide per trip-Shs. 30/-.

(a) Cinematography:Number of persons (including artists, technicians or administrative staff) making orparticipating in the making of the film. .1-5 Shs. 1,000/- (For every week or part thereof during which6-20 Shs. 4,000/- film is being taken)over 20 Shs. 10,000/-

(b) Still PhotographyOne person or more than one person travelling or working together and forming onephotographic unit.Fees: Shs. 400/- per week or part thereof.

Third ScheduleThe Director is empowered to fix any other Misc. rates i.c. rates for hostels, huts,rest/guest houses etc.

These charges will come into effect from 1st January, 1977.

exceed a dozen individuals. The twoclassified nursery herds seen were asfollows:-

Total1826

BullII

Adultfemales

615

2-yr- Year- Calvesolds lings 6

2 3 6I 3(2F,

1M)

An interesting observation was madeon the ages of calves. They were allbetween six and eight months old in thesmaller herd while no calf was older thanthree months in the larger herd. Thispattern suggests that roan in Lambwe donot breed seasonally but that each herdsynchronizes its breeding separately. It islikely that calving takes place at tenmonth intervals, as has been found withroan in the Kruger National Park.

At present there are over 200 roanin and around the Lambwe Valley.His policy of grass burning appearsto be an extremely effective way of keepingthe animals inside the reserve.

The valley is an ideal site for studyingroan, Jackson's hartebeeste 'and oribi andresearch on any of these ungulates shouldbe given every encouragement.

The Shimba Hilla RoanI continued my observations on the

Shimba Hills roan between June andSeptember 1976. This short reportsummarizes their present status.

In September, 13 roan were observedin the reserve which is the highest numbersince 1973 when my observations startedand, when no more than 10 individualsexisted. At present, there are 7 adultfemales (2 of which were born in 1973),one I8-month old female, two 1o-monthold female calves, a month old male calfand two adult males. The existence ofthese two adult bulls was only confirmedduring the last week of my observations.Two bulls were regularly seen in 1973and 1974 but last year it appeared onebull had disappeared. The presence of asecond adult male may make all thedifference to continued survival of theseroan.

Receut observations indicate that theseroan have overcome their critical period.During 1974-75 only one calf survived.In September, 1976, three calves werepresent also four females are expected togive birth before the end of the year.

If the roan continue to make such goodprogress these should be between 16 and18 roan by the end of It)77. These mightinclude the second generation ShimbaHills roan.

Continued fro.m page iiipresent, any fire started in the adjacentshambas could spread causing considerabledamage should it reach the reeds andgrasses in the swamp.

I can recommend a visit to this smallpark outside Kitale as the Sitatunga,which are coming out into the open, canbe clearly seen. Also, the bird life isextremely interesting with so many un-common species being present.

.If one is lucky Brazza monkeys may beseen in the forest on the Eastern side ofthe swamp, especially when a path has beenconstructed through these forest blocks.

AmboseliPark underpressure

Zebra foals have been dying duringthe dry seasons to the extent of nearlyone third of the reproduction rate. This isa naniral cause agravated by the presenceof too many cattle. When the rains failthe zebra do not disperse but concentrateon the swamps; the lack of good grasscauses the nursing mare's milk to dryup which makes it necessary for the foalsto resort to eating grass before they areready. Owing to the heavy concentrationof animals using the swamp areas there isinevitably, a build up of parasites to whichthe small foals are unable to offer anyresistance.

In 1975, there were only eight temporaryMasai manyattas but, this year, they haverisen to 32, mostly with people fromTanzania, who, strangely enough areallowed to remain within a National Park.

The advent of the new watering points,which were specially put in to help theMasai, have proved a dangerous amenitywhich has backfired.

Cattle have been concentrating on thesecentres and the grazing has become non-existant. To find sufficient food for theircattle the Masai have returned to theswamps which is exactly the reverse ofwhat was desired. The extra water hasattracted those herds from over theTanzania border creating a nearlyimpossible situation which is certainlynot helping the wildlife. Under suchcircumstances, controlled management isimpossible until a really strong hand istaken to maintain the law in respect ofMasai incursions in Amboseli. If not, theoutlook is bleak for this most popular ofKenya's wildlife parks.

Serengeti BirthsThis is a good season for births in the

Serengeti. Reports from there tell ofmany cubs being born to the seven lionpedes around-Seronera. But one pridewith 14 cubs in all had lost 10 of them bythe end of October, only having 4remaining. The cause'seems to be mainlyhunger although the other prides didmuch better. This poor pride killed abuffalo towards the end of October, so theyshould not be hungry any longer. A lionesswas found dead from Anthrax however,and this may have contributed to the cubmortality although no other deaths fromAnthrax have been found. The count ofsurviving cubs in these Seronera pridesstood at 4S,at the beginning of November.Two cheetahs have given birth to 6 cubseach and both families have been seen tobe in good health. Our cheetahs are veryclever since previously it had been statedthat a cheetah would be very unlikely tobe able to raise more than 4 cubs.

On 18th October, a black-backedJackal was seen to kill a Thomson's gazelle.He was then joined by two others for thefeast. A similar incident, this time catchingan Impala, was seen on October 28th.A wild dog pack of 14 was around Seroneraearly in October, and at this time the Topiwere dropping their calves and theBushbuck too.

Baboon study reportThe rangers studying baboons were

trained at Gombe and they are doingthe best they can in between having to goout on anti-poaching patrols. Towardsthe end of October they found one malebaboon injured and by himself up onMount Meru, but otherwise the baboonsduring this time are tending to rangemuch wider owing to the shortage of food.In early November, it was still dry-therains being expected at any time. Duringthis period baboons especially seek fruitin the forests in order to ,augment theirdiet.

In Mikumi, where there is a small teamfrom University of California Riverside,studying baboons the observers also havehad a rather difficult time lately, owing tothe wide ranging of the troop which theynormally observe, in search of food. Muchof the plains area has been burnt off atthis time so that the troop spends more

time in the forested area3 where observationis difficult. Early one morning they saw thetroop surround an impala faun and attackit. The mother did her best to drive themaway and did to some extent succeedfor the faun was seen to limp off followingher later. This troop fu.1 one old male,named Makamu, who has difficultykeeping up with the troop especially atthese times when shortage of food makesthem travel far. But he is often keptcompany by a young male named Mifupa,while he is apart from the troop. Towardsthe end of September the two of themwere together away from the troop forthree days and then rejoined them.

During October, the observers watcheda vulture trying to catch an infant baboon,but the protection of their babies bybaboons is careful and the vulture had tolook for his meal somewhere else.

Cheetah injured by radio collarIn mid October, a cheetah was found by

our rangers with very severe mouthinjuries. These had been caused by a radiocollar. They cut off the collar but it isdoubtful if the poor animal could survivewith such wounds. We don't know if thiswas the result of careless fixing of the collar,but we do at least know that it was theresult of a collar being put on the cheetah.The clear conclusion is that our scientistswill have to find other methods of trackingour animals if the present methods aregoing to kill those very animals. Thecheetah is especially vulnerable among thecarnivores because of its timidity. Onewonders how many other cheetahs havedied owing to careless interference by man.

At the end of September, the killing ofa cheetah by lions was seen in TarangireNational Park. It must be most unusualfor this to happen, but on this occasion itseemed that the cheetah was disturbed bya car and running away, went straight towhere the lions were resting. It was asurprise for all, but the cheetah being aloneand weaker suffered. The lions just jumpedon it, and killed it, and then left the carcassand went away, not eating any of it.

Seen also in Tarangire on 21st October,

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at 8.30 in the morning, a fight to the deathbetween two saddlebill storks. They hada quarrel over a fish in the river and afierce fight ensued. The fight went on forIt hours with the birds using their beaks,wings and legs. The victor finally killinghis opponent by pecking him on the head.The body lay in the water, head down,neck stretched out in front and legsstretched out behind. A third saddlebillthen came up, chased away the victor whomust have been very tired too, and wasseen to try to raise the dead one by liftingup its head.

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KenyaTanzaniaUgandaMlombo WoodlandZone (Angola, ZambiaMozambique, Malawi)Southern Africa (BotswanaRhode.la, S.A. Africa,S. Africa)We.t AfricaNorthea.ternAfricaZaire

overan

constitutes a major and continuing threatto the animal, especially as the commercialincentives involved have led to considerableillegal traffic.

By virtue of its ecological andbehavioural attributes, the leopard is anexceptionally adaptable predator. In itsundisturbed condition it is capable ofexistence in every type of habitat in Africasouth of the Sahara, in particular thethornbush and woodland areas where it isreputed to reach remarkably high densities.

Where the cheetah is not capable ofadapting to changed conditions, theleopard is more catholic in its prey species,acceptable hunting conditions, habitats-and moreover it is capable of holdingagainst other carnivores. A powerfulanimal, it does not depend on speed for thecapture of its prey and is capable ofkilling much larger animals than thecheetah.

The one agency which represents anover-riding threat is poison. Readily andcheaply available, the agricultural poisonsused for tick control, mainly toxaphene,kill indiscriminately. But provided thatmuch stricter control is exercised on theissue of the toxaphene group of poisons,the future of the leopard is reasonablysecure. Fortunately more effective andvery much less poisonous dips are beingintroduced and It can be anticipated thatthe importation and use of toxaphenewill be severely curtailed in the near futureand a case for its being completely bannedcan be justified.

Meanwhile, the international fur trade,together with the poaching which itinduces continues to depress leopardpopulations in several parts of Africa.Despite the moratorium in skins recom-mended by the International Fur TradeFederation in September 1971, demand forthem is as strong as ever, notably fromFrance, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia andJapan. Unless a rigorous system of

under 2.000 range 1.000-3.0001.000 or less range 500-1,500170 range 100-250

1.500 plus range 800-3.300

4,600 range 2,850-7.3001,700 range 800-2.600

2.500 range 1.150-4.500300 range 100-500

14.000 range 7,300-23.000

controls which producer and consumercountries would support in good faith,exploitation should not be countenancedin any form. As the system of controlssuggested is not likely to be enforced andindeed may well be un-enforceable, thesuggestion of establishing exploitation ofthe leopard on a sustained-yield basismust be regarded as unacceptable.

Leopard PopulationsIt is regarded as virtually impossible to

census leopard populations and accordinglymethods have been devised to measure theapproximate densities. As a result of theinvestigation it is suggested that the leopardis able to maintain a density of one per10 sq. km in moderately suitable habitat,with one per 5 sq. km in favourable onesand even one to every sq. km. in excep-tionally suitable conditions. In endeavour-ing to determine the poaching pressures,the report concludes that it can only beassessed as an increase in the activity ofpoachers relative to the former situationand that no absolute figures can bedetermined.

The Leopard's FutureGiven that there is unlikely to be much

change in the conservation of leopard,it is predicted that the range and thereforethe numbers will become steadily morerestricted to isolated localities in remoteareas-but could survive to the end of thecentury.

As the future for wildlife in general insome African countries is bleak in theextreme, it can be taken that the leopardis capable of surviving as long as the rest(ofthe wildlife.

.Full details of the survey can be obtainedfrom IUCN Monograph No.5. TheLeopard, Panthera pardus, in Africa byDr. N. Myers and IUCN Monograph No.4The Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, in Africaalso by Dr. Myers).

WWF around the worldSenegaL Three new National Parks havebeen established bringing the number tosix and occupying 4 % of the country's198,000 sq. kms.

Philippines. Following reports ofproposals to release about 60,000 ha. of the73,000 ha. Apo National Park for lumbe-ring, the President of WWF appealed toPhilippines President Marcos not to openup the National Park for lumbering as thiswas one of the most valuable in the tropicscontaining samples of unique plants andanimals.

Galapagos Islands. Fire ants are posinga grave new threat to the unique GalapagosIslands where they have been introducedaccidentally in fresh fruit and vegetablescarried to the islands. The danger is to

the smaller invertebrate fauna such assnails which provide the food for the Gianttortoises, Land and Sea iguanas and otherunique life forms.

Environmental Education. In an effortto educate the general population onenvironmental problems the NationalEnvironment Secretariat has set up a sub-committee on Environmental Educationand is in process of establishing an audio-visual library. To assist in -this mostvaluable role of conservation the WorldWildlife Fund Kenya has presented a copyof the film which was produced speciallyfor the Tropical Forest ProtectionCampaign of WWF, "Africa-Forest orDesert".

THE ELSA WILDANIMAL APPEAL

by ELLIS MONKSNegotiations are still proceedingwith the Ministry of Tourism &Wildlife for the development of theNJorowa Gorge, more popularlyknown as Hell's Gate, as a NationalPark.

The Elsa Wild Animal Appeal haveput forward a proposal to purchase theland behind the D.C.K. carnationplantations at Naivasha as a first stage in thedevelopment of this park. The area willembrace the valley and larva· hilIs to theedge of the gorges and hot springs in thesouth.

On the western side of this land is thevery interesting larva flow with its hotsteam jets which is within the triangle ofGovernment land and in which theGeothermal Project is operating. Govern-ment ha~ indi?ted .its willin~~s toconsider mcludmg this area WIthin thepark.

However, before any further steps canbe taken, it is necessary to ensure that thenorthern strip of what was Akira Ranchand which contains the fascinating gorgesand hot springs, can be included in thepark. It is hoped that Mt. Longonotitself will also be ceded to the proposednew park.

The Njorowa Gorgel from its openingnear Ndabibi to its exit on Akira Ranch,together with large tracts of steep, littleused and almost unusable hilIy country oneither side of the gorge itself, is a geologicalcuriosity, being the ancient outlet of LakeNaivasha, and having in its lower portionmany steam jets. It is, besides, an out-standingly interesting place for bird life,being particularly notable for birds ofprey and swifts. In the cliffs of the gorgebreed Verreaux's Eagles, Augur Buzzards,Egyptian and RuppelI's Griffon Vultures,Peregrine and Lanner Falcons and the onlypair of Lammergeiers that can be easilyobserved anywhere in East Africa.

In addition, during the rains, there is aspectacular concentration of swi.ftsbreeding in the cliffs. In the early ramsthousands of swifts are to be seen everyevening coming in to roost and indulging inspectacular courtship flights.

Although it has been constantly poachedthere is stilI a fair amount of plains game inthe gorge area. If the wildlife was sparedfrom continuous poaching and snaring,and given access to an undisturbed sectionof Lake Naivasha, it would undoubtedlyincrease and make the gorge a faunalspectacle as well as an ornithological andgeological site of unusual interest.

Scenically, the gorge area is one of themost spectacular places in Kenya, andbotanically it is of great interest because ofthe great variety of succulents and varyingplant habitats on its sides.

The E.A. Wild Life Society is interestedin co-operating with Elsa Wild AnimalAppeal in making available the fundsraised for the Kitengela Project. In additionfunds raised by the Kenya National Parksfor the same project are currently held bythe Ministry of Tourism and Wildlifeand it is hoped that these too can beutilised for the development of what couldbe one of the most fascinating NationalParks in Kenya.(I Extracted from "A Proposal to Esta-blish a Chain of National Parks or NationalMonuments along the length of the KenyaRift Valley" by Dr. Leslie Brown andDr. P. GIQver.)

Continued/rom page 13

Nakuru National Park was undertaken byMr. Simon Taiti who heads the ResearchDivision for the Game Department.Nakuru was chosen because it appearedto contain much of the right food forgiraffe and there were no others therewith which the Rothschild would crossbreed thus losing their characteristics.The Lambwe Valley National Park wasalso surveyed and approved as a possibledestination for the same reasons.

There seemed no purpose in going tothe trouble and expense of translocatinggiraffe only to have them wander away,scattering across surrounding farms andgetting into trouble, and the WorldWildlife Fund contributed to the cost of afence to surround the entire 35 squaremiles of Nakuru Park.

Our involvement began linnocuouslyenough 18 months ago when we obtainedpermission from the Game Departmentand the Craigs to move two of the babiesto our Langata property where a numberof wild giraffe were already living. JockRutherfurd captured them for us in hairraising cowboy fashion from a gallopinghorse-but that is another story.

After living for some months with theadorable creatures, who not only run ourlives but fill us with joy and laughter aswell-and who quickly destroyed aformerly presentable garden-we becameconfirmed giraffe junkies and determinedto try to help their cousins who remainedat Soy. Although a massive amount ofgroundwork had been undertaken byothers, in true Kenya fashion the hardpart was finding anyone who would get itall together.

David Craig was no longer sure thatthe settlers were going to buy the ranchafter all. There was talk of a Nandiconsortium purchasing the land andturning it into a miniature game park forwestern Kenya to attract tourists, and thatwould mean that the giraffe were welcometo stay. The Ministry of Defence toyedwith compulsory acquisition to make itinto a strategic airfield for the Kenya AirForce, and in the end bought 5,000 acresfor this purpose. Foot and mouth diseasethen spread through the area, threateningany movement at all.

The Game Department were notconfident that the fence at Nakuru wouldreally be adequate after all, and in anyevent there was no provision in theirbudget tor this translocation. The WorldWildlife Fund had offered to help

originally, but in the light of variousuncertainties it was not sure that themoney would now be available. JohnSeago and Tony Parkinson were ready toundertake .the work as professionaltrappers, and while prepared to do thejob virtually at cost it was unclear howthat cost would be met. Perhaps Govern-ment might allow them to do it on a "onefor one" basis, whereby for each giraffemoved to Nakuru they could captureone for themselves to export to a zoo.

These initial questions were followedby others arising from the amalgamationof the Game Department and the NationalParks. Without intending it we graduallyfound ourselves the unofficial co-ordinatorsas it were, between the Craigs, elements ofthe prospective settlers, the ResearchDivision of the Game Department and thenewly formed Conservation and Manage-ment Department, the World WildlifeFund both here in Kenya and inSwitzerland, Jock Rutherfurd-who wasprepared to do anything and had hishorses standing by oiled and greased,John Seago and Tony Parkinson, and asword got around, an increasingly broadspectrum of interested private citizenswho at one time and another had drivenpast the giraffe on their way to Kitale andenjoyep them and simply wanted to help.It would have been easier to run GeneralMotors, we told ourselves.

Blah, BlahIn the end we decided to go ahead

anyway and raise some money. We didobvious things like writing to JakeRothschild in London, prevailing uponhim to uphold the good name of the familyin this altruistic effort, blah blah blah,and he responded with a generous £1,000.

We then conceived the idea of a GiraffeBall and put our daughter Dancy Brucein charge of it-and that was a smart move.As if by magic she found companieslike Block Hotels and Kenya Wine Agenciesand Cadbury Schweppes and many manyothers were eager to provide everythingneeded to feed and drink (drunk?) threehundred people. Alan Root gave a hotair balloon ride for four over the Mara as araffle prize-and brought along a 10 ft.tall rubber giraffe for good measure.Monty Ruben gave a night for two at theMount Kenya Safari Club and Ted Gugisoffered two nights at the Ark. And so itwent.

At midnight a giraffe with foursuspiciously female looking legs appearedat the head of the stairs to a roll of drumsfrom the band donated by the Inter-Continental Hotel, and made its way down

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to the dance floor where it executed a redhot tap dance. The last reveller left forhome after 4.30 a.m., and the first count(money is still coming in) next morningcleared Shs. 35,000/- from the GiraffeBall.

The following week the Acting Directorof Conservation and Wildlife Management,Mr. Mutinda, declared that NakJgu Parkwas ready to receive the giraffe andappointed Dr. Chawdhry, the Departmentvet, to mastermind the actual translocationin the first quarter of 1977. TonyParkinson who will assist him set asidetwo weeks in his busy capture calendarand Jock Rutherfurd began building amassive holding boma at Soy with greatexpanding wings so that an attempt couldbe made to drive numbers of the giraffeinto a dead-end funnel, hopefully obviatingthe need to use tranquilising drugs towhich young giraffe do not always respondsatisfactorily.

Even before the actual movement of abreeding nucleus of 25 to Nakuru isunderway, plans are already beingdiscussed about a Wildlife Conservationand Management Department scheme tomove another such nucleus to the LambweValley, and correspondence with Rwandaand the World Wildlife Fund has begunabout the feasibility of sending some toAkagera Park. Not a moment too soon;already the herd has dwindled by about 30as people protect their crops from thegiraffe-but government has posted twoscouts at Soy to keep things under controluntil the movement is completed.

These days such an apparently simpleoperation can only become a realitythrough this willingness of Governmentto initiate ecological surveys, to erectfences, to co-operate with World WildlifeFund and other sources of'money, to haveaccess to the services of professionaltrappers of high calibre, and to givethe go-ahead when all seems ready.

But then 600 irate settlers somehowheard that their future shamba was to beturned into a game park for the giraffeafter all, and Mr. Mutinda had to write anemergency letter which David Craigflew to present to them at a public meetingto dispel the rumour. And now we discoverthat a gap in the southern part of theNakuru fence still remains to be closed....

We wondered whether Cleopatraencountered any of these problems whenshe sent the first giraffe to Europe as apresent to Caesar. Did the Chinese haveto negotiate endlessly in 1414 beforeobtaining their first giraffe from Malindi ?That they revered the Tsu La, as theycalled them, is certain, and Chineseemperors declared them sacred, believingthat the beautiful gentle creaturesrepresented perfect peace, perfect harmonyand perfect justice.

Let us hope that the Rothschild giraffenot only take those qualities with themas they make their way to Nakuru Park toenhance that paradise with their elegantpresence, but that they will leave a littlepeace and harmony for those who havetried to help them over the years. Will theyhave any notion of the amount of effortand plannIng exerted on their behalf byso many people for so long?

As we idly ponder these questions webegin to search the office for the telephonenumber of the man who was going to movethem all like cattle in trucks in a single daywithout telling anyone. It could justbe that we ought to talk to him again.•••

N.B. A second article in a series of threewill be written for Africana by Betty and JockLeslie-Melville after the movement of thegiraffe has been completed.

So that Serengetiand the rest of the great parks of Tanzania

shall not dieby Derek Bryceson,Director, Tanzania National ParksAS human population increases inTanzania, the drive for agricul-tural development as the basis foreconomic growth becomes moreeffective. As this brings bettercommunications and opensup newareas, so the wild animals willbecome more and more restrictedin their movements-and thismeans that the land available tothem will be increasingly limitedto those areas specificallyset asidefor their conservation. .

Already some of our National Parks aresubject to this pressure-and perhaps thebest known Park, the Serengeti, is a goodexample:-

Since the drawing of the present legalboundaries in 1958, there has been steadydevelopment on most sides until now onecan say that the Serengeti, together withthe Ngorongoro Conservation Area, theMaswa Game Reserve, the GameControlled areas, plus the small area ofthe Masai Mara in Kenya, constitutes aclosed ecosystem, the extent of which isapproximately 25,000 sq. km.

Lake Manyara, at the other end of thescale, is now almost totally enclosed andits system comprises little over 500 sq. km.

As each area becomes more confined,it is more necessary to conserve throughmanagement and the old method of"letting Nature take care of itself" becomesan abnegation of responsibility.

Management implies knowledge, andso the proper carrying out of our respon-sibility to conserve requires that decisionsbe based on knowledge. Unfonunatelyour knowledge of the needs of our animaland plant life is still very scant.

The biggest of our animals is theelephant-which, when mature at about 20years old weighs from 4t-6 tons and eats600 lb. of vegatative matter each day.The average elephant will probably liveto between 60 and 70 years.

A recent count in the Selous GameReserve-a co-operative project involvinga Danish aid agency, the TanzaniaGovernment, IUCN and WWF-foundII5,000 elephants there-and there are

probably more than a quarter of a millionelephants in Tanzania as a whole!

In the Serengeti, in Manyara, inTarangire and Ruaha National Parks,elephants are year by year destroyingsignificant numbers of trees, opening upwoodlands and changing habitats for otherspecies, plants and animals. One scientificschool of thought is already for thedestruction of elephants in order to savethe trees and to prevent the degradationof the existing habitat.. .

This is, next to the control of poaching,the biggest problem in the managementof Tanzania National Parks today: Whatdo we do about the elephants? Why dothey eat and destroy the very trees thatthey depend upon for shade and whichwill help conserve rainfall and maintainthe normal climate? How can the treesbe saved? What numbers of elephant,given the other animal populations can.each Park area support? What are thepopulation densities of elephants in thevarious parks, and what are their popu-lation dynamics?

From work done in Manyara andRuaha. we know that we could probablysave mature trees from our elephants byattaching half-inch mesh wire netting totheir trunks (the tree trunks, not theelephant trunks). If we know what theelephants seek when they eat the treeswe might be able to provide them withsome alternative food source.

If we could control bush fires, we couldprobably reduce the pressure on treesfor sustenance in the dry season.

If we develop better water supplies indry areas, and provide more permanentwater there, we could probably cut downwildlife concentrations in the dry seasonsand thus minimise habitat damage.

But we badly need to know more ofthe basic data about our elephants-such as how many elephants does eachPark contain; how do they range over thearea of the Park, and outside the Park;what do they eat throughout the year;what factors effect their feeding andmovements; are the numbers stable orincreasing or decreasing; is there immi-gration from outside areas?

This information could be found byundertaking elephant counts; by monitor·

ing movements; and by watching what they·eat. By analysing this information wecould obviously begin to get a betterpicture of the situation.

To do this, we need pilots and aircraft,people to follow and watch, and peopleto analyse. In fact, we have all the peoplewe need-what we do not have is themoney.

We need to meet the costs of salaries orexpenses; the costs of running aircraftand ground transport. We could protectmore trees by placing wire around them,but we need to buy the wire. We couldimprove our firebreaks and constructsimple small improvements to the naturalwater s:upplies, but again running a D6caterpillar bulldozer costs money.

We could get expert assistance in theanalysis of data, but the experts' expenseshave to be met. We need to train more ofour junior field staff in observation anddata collection, and we could do that too-at the Gombe Stream Research Centre-so long as we could pay the travellingexpenses and necessary living allowances.Our staff are already very enthusiasticand eager to save the trees, to preservethe habitat, and to keep the other animaland plant species. But we need more thanenthusiasm-we need the means to applyaction programmes immediately.

For this reason, Tanzania NationalParks are seeking funds for the followingprogramme :-

I. Save the Trees-Baobabs and Acaciaspp.Wire netting t" mesh surrounds US$Ruaha National Park. 10,000Lake Manyara National Park 5,000Tarangire National Park 5,000

The wire will be placed by ourexisting staff

2. Elephant Census-annual count ofelephant numbers together withmapping of concentrations.

US$2,500

Continued on page 2423

Lake Manyara National Park 750Tarangire National Park . 1,500Serengeti National Park (S.R.I.) 2,600

7,350

The costs are flying expenses of theconsultant, who will be assisted by ourown staff.

3. Observation and Data Collection-teams of two trained rangers in eachPark. The rangers would make a verbalreport by radio each week and submit awritten report each month. They wouldalso note observations of an interestingnature on other animals.

US$1,7501,7501,7501,7501,750

8,750

(Two rangers at Shs. 600/- per montheach for each Park)

Ruaha National Park .Mikumi National Park .Lake Manyara National ParkTarangire National ParkArusha National Park .

3.2. Seminars:It would also be of great advantage tobring them together once a year for aseminar, the cost of which is estimatedat ... U.S.$850.

3.3. Supervision:A Park Warden has been put in chargeof the overall animal observationprogramme. To ensure his mosteffective supervision it would benecessary for him to visit each Parktwice a year for about a month at atime. His travelling expenses wouldamount to .•• U.S.$I,OOO,the Parksorganisation covering salary and othercosts.

4. Small dam, etc. water supplydevelopment-The only Park wherethis is feasible at present is Ruaha.With an area of 1,200 sq.km. andmany little rivers and watercourses, theprospect is good. Amount estimated forrunning the machinery and employingextra casual labour during the drymonths is ... US$10,000.

5. Cutting Fire Breaks-Increasedactivity in cutting firebreaks would bepossible if more funds could be madeavailable. Roads act as firebreaks tosome extent and a network of trackswould both act as physical breaks andfacilitate control of fires that may breakout.Ruaha National Park .Mikumi National Park .Tarangire National Park

7,5003,0003,000-

6. The Total Request isCapital Development1. Save the Trees .4. Water Development5. Fire Breaks

therefore :-US$

20,000.0010,000.0013,500.00

Annual2. Elephant Census .3. Data Collection .

7,350.0010,600.00

EDWARD RDDWELL1SCDLUMN

Avisit fromthe DevilYOUwill remember Peer Gyntand perhaps have seen ArthurRackham's ghostly water-colours depicting the youngliar about his adventures. Youmight have read of how Peer'smother, Aase, reprimandedhim:"Lies: I know, can be so furbishedAnd disguised in gorgeous wrappingsThat their skinny carcases Not asoul could recognise ... "

A sceptical reader has written fromSalem, Mass. saying that I remind herof Peer Gynt.

So mote it be. My reply is to saythat the other night I lay on my bedthe while a couple of hundred yardsa~ay a screaming maddened djinnwith feet on the ground and head in theclouds sent houses spinning andsnapped off old giants of the forestwith its clutching hands; filled the airwith palm fronds, boughs, baobabpods and bougainvillea;' howled withBedlamic glee as buffalo, buck andbaboons fled in terror.

The destructive monster spat in themoon's eye and doused its light; hurleddust upon the stars until they hid andthen raising its whorling umbrella ofshredded cloud danced a wild and madtarantella within a few yards of whereI lay.... Fast asleep.

Nor did I learn of the visitation untiltwo hours had passed. At half-pastfive I was awake and reading Ibsen'smasterpiece. Peer had startled a buckon the brink of a precipice. Theanimal-

Gave a bound sky-high that sent usPlunging o'er the edge and down-wards Gloomy precipice behind us!Fathomless abyss below us!First through clouds of mist we hurtled;Then a flock of gulls we scattered.Wheeling through the air and screamingDownwards ),fill and ever downwards.'Hodi,' called a voice. My spirit

sped from the mountainside of theNorwegian Gudbrandsdal to Mtwapaand an Indian Ocean dawn of yellow-grey stratocumulus.

'Hodi means 'I am here'. During themorning, noon and evening the greetingis a norm of social and business relation-ships. 'Hodi' in the deep dark hours ofnight or in the glim of dawn has onlyone meaning: trouble.

On the verandah stood Juma, thenight watchman of an absent neigh-

bour's house. Juma is middle sized-stocky, dour; a man of few words.

."Last night, at five and twentymmutes past three o'clock a shaitanicame to the place I guard. The houseis now broken completely. The shaitaniripped off the roof and threw thesheets everywhere. It was as thougha bomb had exploded. And so I reportto you. I was awakll and saw thebeginning of the onslaught. Then Iclosed the door of my room."

I dressed and with Juma walkedalong the forest road to the drive ofhis house. On the way I asked whatsort of devil had passed by.

It is not only in Africa that godsand devils abound. Deep in the moresof all people lightning, thunder andrainbows have their meaning: punish-ment and forgiveness. To tread rightor left from the razor-edge pathway ofrightousness invites reprisals. Sophis-ticated Britons with Sandford andMerton memories recall their Nanny'sadmonition:

"No wonder that you get pains inyour legs; going out without yourWellingtons on. That is what St.Paul did. He walked on the Damascusroad in the rain without his Wellies.He went blind .... "If God had punished Paul, He had

no reason that Juma knew to punishthe owner of the house. Nor did Jumaknow the nature of the djinn that hadarrived at Mtwapa creek in the deadof night.

From the garden gate onward westepped through debris: branches,baobab pods, broken sheets ofcorrugated asbestos. The two-cargarage attached to the back of thehouse was completely demolished;roofing sheets were spread in profusionover a large area. Some of the asbestoshad flown high in the air and plungedonto the roof, crushing tiles intofragments. The lovely house was apicture of desolation.

!:eaving the house and extending to aperiphery of fifty yards the rotatingmenace passed through the forest,snapping the tallest trees like carrots,dropping doum palms in their tracks.One doum was thrown across the forestroad severing telephone wires as it fell.On open land the whirlwind toredoums out by their roots. Then highit leapt and returning to earth fellupon a line of cashew trees crushingthem into the ground.

The shaitani, as Juma called it,travelled a mile before it lost its puff.Suddenly and gently it subsided,rustling the leaves on trees and earth;leaving a choking dust in its wake.

And like the rainbow's spectrumafter a StOflDso came a shower, shortand sweet like an old woman's dance.

The moon appeared, and the stars.My bantams clapt their wings andcried defiance to the nightmare passover.The ;ogoo ya kwanza, first cockcrowof the morning was repeated fromrooster to rooster as the dawn sweptwestward across Africa from the IndianOcean to the Atlantic. The muezzinsof the creature world behoved us allnot to walk upon the road in the rainwithout our Wellies.

Write to: The Editor, 'AFRICAJI(P.O." 48010,.~ IWell done theSociety!

Sir-Congratulations on your excellenteditorial (in Vol. 6, NO.3) and thank youfor at last publishing the facts and takinga stand in the EAWLS journal on whatyou so rightly termed "the wildlife crisisin Kenya". In view of the broader politicalramifications of the question, which wereunderstandably referred to only obliquely(though they have been exposed to someextent in the foreign press, as you know),it took courage to print such a piece in amagazine produced locally but, unlike TheNation, widely distributed and read abroad.Irrespective of the potential local repercu-ssions, however, I do think the Society owedit to its members, and particularly theunsuspecting majority in distant countries,to give an accurate picture of what hasbeen going on for all too long in Kenya,once considered one of the leadingcountries in Africa for conservation andrecipient, on these grounds, of the largestshare of international aid for this purpose.

While my own enlightenment-andconsequent disappointment and disillusion-ment-preceded the publication of youreditorial by quite some time, I would stilllike to believe that something can be doneto reverse the present catastrophic trend.It is interesting and encouraging to knowthat the local press has launched acompaign and that the Wildlife Clubs areactive and doing what they can. But I wouldlike to know what role the EAWLS isplaying and can play in the matter. Has itbeen reduced to helplessness or is it in aposition-given continued, even increasedsupport from its members-to takeeffective action on any major aspect ofthe problem? What influence can theSociety bring to bear in official circles andhow can its resources, current andpotential, be mobilised and deployed tothe greatest effect?

-Name and address supplied

Sir-An unusual incident occurred whenI was in Zaire, last October, 1976. I hadbeen watching hundreds and hundredsof hippos (among an estimated z6,000)in Virunga National Park, the formerAlbert Park, and then drove to the villageof Vitshumbi, situated on Lake Edward.This squalid village is inside the Parkand is allowed to remain since the fisher-men of Vitshumbi provide large quantitiesof fish for the Goma market, 130 kilo-metres away.

Upon arrival at Vitshumbi, just after9 :30, I saw a small crowd of peoplestanding around. I approached them andnoticed that there were seven men lyingdown on their backs, with no shoes on,eating raw fish. It seemed very odd to me,and at first I thought it must be somesort of religious festival. I asked some

Blind, blinkeredeconomists

Sir-· Any shop trading in wild animalproducts must be popular with thosebureaucratic economists who advocate"an optional cash return" from wildlife.

They speak blandly in terms of "con-sumptive wildlife utilization". This theyterm to be sport hunting, live animalcapture for export or, for restocking otherareas within Kenya, cropping for meat and

. trophies, and game ranching.Working within their concrete jungles,

gazing over chimney pots they envisagehunting to be the most profitable, largescale "consumptive" form of wildlifeutilization. In their excitement over killin~animals they go further, advocating,even, intensified hunting will be profitableto secure additional off-take throughcJ;"opping.

This all seems to add up to exterminationby easy stages!

They speak of the large and secureexport market and, from what can be seen,local market as well, which must not be

foreclosed or interfered with by ignorant'preservationists', who may put pressureon overseas Governments and firms. Theycontend that if wildlife is to pay its way,prices must not be allowed to drop throughsuch influence or interference.

Wildlife is paying its way. It is avaluable natural resource-while it isalive, at least that is the view of the"ignorant preservationists trying to depressthe markets".

To maintain the all important wildlifenucleus required as the basis for tourismmeans carrying out dedicated conservation.It also means that the animals are notsubject to the blinkered economists'theory on "maximum returns from thewildlife capital"-which is merely toreduce it to zero!

The amount of ivory, skins, teeth,claws, horns and other wildlife "curios"in the ever increasing number of shopsappears to be carrying out the teachingsof bureaucrats to kill everything in theirzeal to make utilization work.

It is this policy that can be blamed for theserious shortfall taking place amongst thecapital stock of Kenya's wildlife.

C. E. Norris,Nairobi.

of the peovle standing watching what itwas all about and was told that the menlying down had apparently tried to over-power a fisherman to steal his fish. Theywere caught by other fishermen andbrought back to Vitshumbi. The peoplethought that an appropriate punishmentwould be to force the would-be thievesto eat raw fish, bones and all. The culpritswere in the process of choking downbites of the fish, but after a while thepolice led them away and I drove back tothe Headquarters of Virunga NationalPark. I asked both junior and seniorofficialsof the Park about this incident andthey said they had never seen anythinglike it before. As Pliny wrote, "there isalways something new out of Africa".

-Esmond Bradley Martin,Nairobi.

Cheetah killed-bymistake

Sir-On the night of 25th. November1976 a mature female Cheetah was

.stoned to death at the site labour campfor the new Nairobi International AirportDevelopment project which is underconstruction just three kilometres east ofthe Nairobi National Park.

To the police, who removed the deadCheetah the following morning, and allof the many bystanders, the animal was"Chui", the dreaded Leopard .

This is yet another example of thenecessity to educate the local populationin wildlife conservation if the virtuallyharmless, and now very rare, Cheetahis to survive into the twenty-first Century.

In the event that anyone has pursuedCheetah identification, along the linesdescribed in "Africana" (Volume 5,number 1,1973), the animal's tail markingsconsisted of a white tip with fifteen whitebands.

-D. G. Hutchinson.

Continued on page 26

25

is, in fact, no evidence at present to suggestthat pollution of the lake water isresponsible for the blue-green algae"crash".

Rather, it seems that soda lakes arenaturally subject to cyclical changes inspecies composition-similar occurrenceshave been observed at Bogoria and the"Big" Momella Lake. However, there is acertain amount of both theoretical andexperimental evidence to suspect that'chemical changes in nutrient availabilitycould be a contributory cause. Oneparticular nutrient that seems to besusceptible is carbon, the availability ofwhich can be altered by fluctuations in theacidity of the water.

In addition, at Nakuru, there is somereason to suppose that "grazing" by fishmight be responsible for the failure of thecyclic recovery of the blue-green algae.Fish are in fact a completely unnaturalcomponent of the Nakuru ecosystem asthey were artificially introduced in theearly sixties. Considering the generallydisastrous results of biological introduc-tions, the fish initially seemed to be agreat success as they brought in manyspecies of fish-eating birds, which hadformerly not been present. But now,perhaps, they may be in part responsiblefor the comparatively low flamingopopulation at Nakuru.

The implications of all this for manage-ment of the National Park are basicallytwo-fold:• either leave the lake and the fish and the

flamingoes to sort themselves out-amajor drought and drying up of the lakewould reduce the fish numbers, or;

• deliberately reduce the fish populationin the hope that the blue-green algaewill increase rapidly.If the absence of flamingoes continues

to' reduce the Nakuru tourism revenue,then a major fish culling experimentcould be economically justified. Even if thefish were not in fact inhibiting algaegrowth, to an appreciable extent, the fishpopulation would in any case recover in acouple of years.

It is, of course, outside my belief, butsome general comment on Lake Nakurumay be helpful.

It will be remembered that, during thelate sixties, a large fund-raising campaignwas carried out by the World WildlifeFund to purchase extra land for thenational park and approximately a quartermillion dollars was contributed towardsthe expansion. This clearly improved thetourist viability of the park and, hopefully,secured its future.

The additional land included a varietyof habitats-acacia woodland, grassland,bush and euphorbia forest, which supporta great variety of bird species and severalpopulations of large mammals. Inparticular, densities pf Reed Buck andWater Buck are probably higher at Nakuruthan at any other tourist area in EastAfrica.

The expansion also protected the Parkagainst agricultural and urban encroach-ment which was clearly essential for the"ecological health" of the Lake and themaintenance of its "wild" or "natural"appeal.

Thus the WWF scheme was clearly asuccess and entirely worthwhile, but inretrospect perhaps the project was sold tosubscribers on the wrong premise.

There is considerable evidence ofexceptionally high flamingo occupance atNakuru during the sixties-probably theresult of heavy rains at the beginning of26

the decade which raised the Lake to anabnormally high level. But before that-although no figures were recorded before1969-the Lake dried up occasionally, andthere were probably fewer birds there thanthere are today. For this reason, it wasprobably unwise to promote the lake asessentially a "flamingo spectacle".

The image of Lake Nakuru NationalPark should therefore be more diffuse-a superb sanctuary for more than 400 birdand 50 mammal species.

When the million plus flamingoes are'''in residence", this would be merely aboqus attraction. .,. There would seem to'be no obstructionto incorporating lake Elementeita in theNational Parks system, administered ofcourse from Nakuru. The lake itself isalready Government property and achange of status would be simply aninternal administrative matter. The presentriperian land-owners might not. objectsince the lake water is too brakkish forwatering cattle or irrigation and thegrazing along the shore is poor eitherbecause of the high soda content of thesoil or because it's too rocky.

At present, the majority of visitors toNakuru are of the day-trip variety, oftenspending less than one hour in the park.Nakuru could in fact be sold as a "safaridestination" ; generating more touristrevenue from longer stop-overs anddemonstrating to the people of Nakuruthat tourism is the most profitable landuse for the lake area. This concept ofNakuru as a main stop-over on the Mt.Kenya tourist circuit would be even morerealistic if Lake Elementeita were alsomade accessible to visitors and declareda park or reserve area.

As was pointed out earlier, Elementeitais shallower than Nakuru and is thereforecharacterised by benthonic diatoms as aprimary food resource. This means thatflamingoes will tend to occupy Elementeitawhen conditions at Nakuru are un-favourable-which means visitors to thearea would be assured of a flamingo"spectacle" at all times.

In any event, Elementeita has severalof its own attractions and ought not to bemade generally inaccessible by a barricadeof private land. It is an important breedingground for Great White pelicans andGreater flamingoes; and it supports largenumbers of resident and palearctic waders,especially avocets which are more easilyobserved there than at Nakuru.

The geographical location of Elementeitais ideal, logistically, for conservation andtourist exploitation.

It is also essential that ecologicalmonitoring of the Nakuru lake ecosystemshould be continued and expanded to afar more sophisticated level than ispresently undertaken. There is also an'obvious need for a full expert study ofthe reasons for the blue-green algaedecline-and why the wildlife authoritieshaven't brought in an algaeologist beforenow is quite baffling.

However, in spite of the variousproblems facing Nakuru, the future forflamingoes themselves looks fairly bright-whether they will again favour Nakurufor their greatest concentration, Or not.In general, their habitats are remote,desolate, low rainfall areas, in which thereis little or no agricultural or industrialpotential. If they are going to be seriouslythreatened in East Africa it would haveto be caused by a significant climaticshift, causing a general drying up of theRift Valley lakes. There is a precedent forthis in Australia, but under suchcircumstances, flamingoes would be theleast of the local government's concerns.

LETTERS Continued frompage 2S

Sir-Your enlightening editorial repre-sented undoubtedly a major contribution tothe problems of Wildlife Conservation.There are, however, a few aspects of theConservation which were not brought up inthe article, to mention only:I. General: The explosion of population

allover the World and in Africa inparticular, puts the Man and hissurvival above everything else. Thedrive for the utilization of land to getfood for the human population willleave no free' place for any otherpurposes, however noble the purposecould be. If the Wildlife has to surviveit must supply the money of more valuethan the agricultural or ranchingutilization. In the National Parks thetourists will supply the big Income.On private land, we must introduce adifferent solution: namely, the sporthunting for tourist hunters.

It is a proven fact that in the U.S.A.and especially in thickly populatedcountries like Germany, Austria andBelgium the hunters saved the Wildanimals, moreover, the animals there atpresent are much more numerous thanthey were years ago. In our neighbouringcountry on a small Island of Mauritiusthere wasno Game, until the Sportsmenhunters introduced the Game fromEurope and they are keeping it intact.

2. The Furids can coine and are comIngfrom private hunting companies inhunting Concessions. The admin-istration andantipoaching activitiesin the concessions cost the Con-cessionaires a very heavy money whichdefinitely will never be recovered frombooking fees and is in reality acontribution towards the Conservation.In this connection I must point outthat the allocation and the distributionof hunting concessions could have twoentirely opposite results: if given topeople who are aiming only to makequick money and do not really know.anything about Wildlife - the con-cession system would be to say theleast - useless, but on the other hand ifgiven to experienced and honestorganizations (or persons) it wouldsecure the Conservation and thriving ofthe Wildlife. In this connection I mustmention that the world known EastMrican Professional Hunters As-sociation was never consulted. ThisAssociation in her nearly 50-yearshistory has always fought for theconservation and it was this organizationwhich helped and contributed to theestablishment of the Wild AnimalProtection Act in Kenya and Tanzania.The very good review in the artiCle of

the situation in various Parks and GameReserves and particularly, in Mara mustbe corrected: Before the concessionscame into force on April 1st, 1976, thewhole of Narok area was terribly overbooked and no quota set for Lion andZebra. This resulted in over killing of theLion. Since the intro.duction of strictquotas in concessions (very small indeedfor Lion and Leopard) the position improv-ed considerably and the population of Lionincreased visibly.

In my opinion the two Conservationminded organizations namely: The EastAfrican Wildlife Society and the EastMrican Professional Hunters Associationshould meet together and have an exchangeof ideas and unify their efforts towardsthe Conservation of Wildlife in Kenya.

W. Wincza,Professional Hunter.

THE wide metal road from Nairobi to the Black Mountain of the Maasai takes less thantwo hours in a Mercedes-about 12 dollars' worth of Arab petrol; ten machine-madecigarettes; and two European operas on the car stereo.

It has a distinct political alignment since it rots expressively into potholes before itsdestination just across the border in Socialist Tanzania.

Another way of looking at it is as a Mall to the grave of Mbatian, the Laibon who prophesi-ed the coming of the white men and their civilised contraptions, such as the steam trainand the written word which divided and requisitioned the Maasai's Rift Valley estates.

But Mbatian's unmarked cairn of stones high on Namanga Mountain is irrelevant,as is his ambition that the people of Maa and their culture should remain intact.

The road bisects a Maasailand which isnow hardly more than a name on out-datedmaps, crumbling at the edges with immi-grant settlers and heavily eroded by uselesscattle. The people's traditions are similarlydying, mostly from government disap-proval.

But there is one irony on the road,which might have amused the Maasai a fewweeks ago when the Kaputiei of-osha orlegion celebrated the passing out of an ageset of warriors. The signpost to this irre-levant Roman holiday was a burned-outcar wreck.

It pointed to cattle-tracks leading to avillage of dung and leleshwa huts deep in

Kajiado District where the traditionale-unoto ceremony was staged.

Unfortunately the Triumph was not'all it should have been since the warriorsare denied their warring and even a modesthand-to-mouth lion kill.

Still the moran were more or less asHerodotus described them in Egyptin the fifth century before Christ. Theirhair was shaped with ochre and muttonfat into the bronze cockaded helmets ofthe fighting legionnaire. They wore the

Non equidem invideo, miror magisRoman chiton, but lengthened to coverbare buttocks and other embarrassmentsby order of the government.

For; this reason, the short-swords orsimis were not evident and sticks substitutedfor spears as the moran danced in theirbattle-square testudo formations.

It was an impressive military display

nonetheless, with the battalions of moranstirring the dust with their ululating orhigh-jumping to the drumming cadenceof a war chant. Great banners of Dutch-printed sarongs tied to sticks were wavedin the air. Occasionally moran fell outlike guardsmen, but foaming and rigid ina traumatic fit.

*More restrained, and solemnly religious,

were the Praetorian Guard of the moranwho.were away on the plain, sitting undera solitary wild fig tree, bowing their headsto a blessing on behalf of their wilder agemates.

These were a select group of 49. moranled by three newly elected "colonels of thelegion" who would function as protocol,cultural and social service officers of thenew set of junior elders. Their insigniawas a cowhide mantle, but the honour isnot exactly popular since the traditionand apparently the historic fact is that oneof them will die young as an obscure sig~alfrom Ngai that all is well with the age set.

However, they were brave enough asvenerable elders of the ol-osho prayed overthem while offering the pieces of theheart and lungs of a freshly-slaughteredox. The moran took one bite and spat itout, then swallowed the next bite.

This most secret parr of the eunotois full of Bergmann symbolism. The moranare enclosed in a circle of small thornbranches which relates to their impendingmove from the unprotected warriorsmanyatta to the fortified en-kang ofmarried elders. One of the strictesttaboos is that no woman should touchor even see the meat a moran eats, but onthis occasion four matriachs watched fromtwo or three hundred yards away-pre-empting the marriage of the moran and thesharing of meat with their wives.,

Hours later, the praetorians returnedto the main camp for the concludingceremonies, principally the ritual urinatingin a special sinkira hut which is the privilegeonly of the moran who have obeyed thecommandment not to sleep with marriedwomen.

This particular ceremony was watchedwith interest by the en-toyie-younguncircumcised girls decked out likedebutantes in their best beads and bangleseyeing their former bed-mates now eligiblefor marriage.

These girls, aged between eight andthirteen, are the vestal noviciates of theRoman system. At least they are supposedto remain virginal, and probably would doexcept that the moran's virile energiesare not now dissipated by murderousinternecine and conquering wars, rustling,and looting throughout most of Kenya.

Another interested observer was a fat-bellied Maasai in a suit and shoes. Hewas a politician, urging the elders to breaktheir word and extort more cash from thedespised it meek or strangers at theceremony. On the other hand, he waslamenting the "damn poor show" of thee-unoto, which sported only one lionmane headdress and was generally atatty exposition of the tradition.

In a sense, the fat man was two currentlywarring Maasai politicians in one. Theseare the two present ambassadors to theoutside world in Nairobi who are followingthe party line and demanding change ofthe tribe. One orders his people intotrousers and otherwise to civilise them-selves; the other preaches "modernisation"but not at the expense of a social systembased on decency, justice and mutualprotection.

The man..in the suit, fattened on theuntouchable maize meal of lesser peoples,looked incongruous among the moran.But in fact he fits the scene in Kenya andthe conservative Maasai do not.

Continued on page 30

Mother courageTHE excitement of wildlife photography in EastAfrica is the unexpected-ofsuddenly being confronted with momentary drama or rare wildlife incident.These pictures, for example, are of exceptional animal behaviour, as agiraffe mother's instinct to protect her young overcomes her terror of predatorlions. The cats had killed her baby, but for several minutes she stayed withthe body and successfully kept the lions at bay. Eventually she realised thather courage was for nothing, and moved off.PICTURES: by Nigel Dundas.

Their distain of underpants is describedas "primitive;" their moran about asuseful as "aborigines on.a walkabout."Their cattle are too bulky to be viableas currency; moreover the cows are atax dodge and are over-eating the country-side without the slightest benefit to the'national economy. Worse still, in themiddle of the recent drought in Kajiado,they took to eating the lawns in suburbanNairobi, offending the high-minded dele-gates to an UNESCO conference.

The Maasai are altogether an embarrass-ment to some people. They are arrogant,aggressive, and ridiculously stubbornabout accepting the fruits of economic30

development and enterprise-such asthe plunder of wildlife on their well-stocked land.

It is typical of Maasai intransigencethat they should now refuse legitimatepoaching on their land, and should threatento skin the next non-Maasai who straysfrom the metal road for this purpose,including U.N. "experts."

For this reason and others, the Maasaiamount to an anachronism in modernKenya. This may well have been the lastof the e-unotos and, as Mr and Mrs Hindewrote sixty years ago, "The Last of theMaasai."

Anatomyof the37wild catsof theworldWILD CATS OF THE WORLD.C. A. W. Guggisberg. London: David& Charles, 1975.

GUGGISBERG'Slatest book is a com-prehensive compilation of informationon every known wild cat in the worldtoday. I would not recommend reading it.from cover to cover, as I have done, because.the material is arranged in an encyclopaedicmanner which minimises the enjoyment ofsuch a mine of information. This is not tosay that Wild Cats of the World is not agood book: it serves a useful purpose inputing together the accepted facts on thecharacteristics, distribution and habits ofcats in one handbook. Guggisberg hasalso included a very detailed chapter on theorigin and evolution of cats along with ashort study of the myths and cultssurrounding the cats.

Despite man's fascination of the cats,he knows very little indeed about them.Fifteen of the thirty-seven in existencewere only identified in the nineteenthcentury, and one was discovered as recentlyas 1967 (the Iriomote cat). The habits inthe wild of the Chinese Desert cat, Pallas'scat, the Marbled cat, the Bomean Redcat, the Flat-Headed cat, and the Kodkodhave hardly ever been noted. Evenphotographs of eight of the cats are lackingin this book. On several of the species,Guggisberg has had to rely on descriptionsreported by only one or two observors ofthem in the wild. Budding young animalbehavioural scientists obviously have theopportunity to write scores and scores oforiginal Ph.D. theses on wild cats, notonly in Africa and Asia, but also inAmerica. Let us hope, though, that thenew scientists will not further decimatetheir populations.

I counted at least eleven instances inWild Cats of the World where the autherberated fashion designers for instigatingthe cult of cat pelts for coats, but he doesnot have anything to say about thethousands arid thousands of cats that havebeen killed for "scientific study purposes"or to replace moth-eaten specimens onexhibit in museums. It seems to me that acertain hypocrisy is herein permitted.A lesser evil, but still inexcusable, is oneperpetuated by the very existence ofnational parks and reserves where thecats have become fairly used to cars andtry to carryon their activities obliviously I

to them, with the result that their hunting

successes are remarkably less than theyshould be. Guggisberg notes that "onecannot escape the conclusion that in themerciless struggle for survival, the cheetahis up against heavier odds than othermembers of the cat family". He also statesin respect to the cheetah that "every runafter game thus means .an all-out effortof the highest order, and if it ends infailure-as it very frequently does-the animal will have to recuperate for halfan hour or so, preferably in the shade of abush or a tree, before it is capable ofhunting again".

The cheetah depends not on conceal-ment and stealth but on speed alone tomake its kill. Nonetheless, Guggisberghimself thwarted one cheetah kill which hedescribes in Wild Cats of the World. He hadseen through his field glasses one morningin Nairobi National Park a mother cheetahcarrying a prey in her mouth, followedby five little cubs; Guggisberg quicklystarted his car as the family made its waytoward a strip of riverine forest, hopingthat he might "cut the animals off fromcover and get some photographs". In herfright over the car heading towards her,the mother dropped the impala fawnshe had caught and yet another meal fora family was lost. How many other visitorsto parks and reserves have inadvertentlycaused predators to go hungry for muchthe same reasons? It is a thought toponder, especially now when there is sovery little supervision of visitors toNairobi Park.

In my opinion, the very best chaptersof this book are those in which Guggisbergincludes his own observations of the cats.He has been particularly fortunate tohave observed leopard so frequently inthe wild. He has learned that "the speciesis highly flexible in its habits", and itsbehaviour is not exactly the same in alllocalities. He has found that among the bigcats, the leopard is "certainly the mostaccomplished stalker". He includessuperb descriptions of leopards feedingupon their kills. His observations oncheetah are excellent, and he makes an THE GRASSLANDS of East Africainteresting suggestion that the grey mantle support a huge population of severalof young. cheetah cubs might serve as million mammals, including more thanprotection for them by its resemblance to one million wildebeest in the Serengeti.the honey badger or ratel, which is one Although there has been a considerableof the most aggressive African mammals amount of research carried out on variousand one which most other animals shy aspects of the vegetation of East Africa,away from. surprisingly little is known on the origins

Wild Cats of the World is a well produced of the grasslands. There are two schools ofbook, printed on good paper and with an thought. One group believes that the grass-attractive, easily-read typeface. It is lands have replaced forests which have beenremarkably free from typographical errors; destroyed by man-made fires. The otherI caught Amboseli mispelled, but that thinks that the grasslands owe theirwas just about the only mistake in printing origin and distribution to the nature of thewhich I noticed. I found it rather odd that soils, climatic patterns and topographythere should be as many as three title of the area.pages to the book, but publishers do Vesey-Fitzgerald believes that althoughhave their whims! It would have been fires have destroyed vast forest land infar nicer had the photographs of the tropical Africa, thus permitting annualcats accompanied the sections pertaining and perennial grasses to take the placeto them in the text and would have also of trees, there are as well specific areasmade for a much better lay-out of the book. such as along rivers and on deltas whereI am getting rather tired of book publishers grasses originated due to the specifictelling us how much cheaper it is to put soils and drainage conditions. It is veryall the photographs together in the middle, likely that Vesey-Fitzgerald's thesisand I do not really believe it is so much which incorporates ideas from botha matter of economy as of laziness, schools of thought is one which scientistsparticularly in this instance where the will come to accept in the future.photographs are printed on the same This short book of 95 pages is dividedquality paper as the text itself. into eleven chapters for the purpose of

Since so many of the cats are little discussing the different types of grasslandsknown (how often do we see Geoffrey's in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia, whichcat or the flat-headed cat ?), it should have include among others the Rukwa Valley,been understood as necessary to have the the Miombo of Western Tanzania andpictures accompanying the descriptions of the fringes of deserts of northern Kenya.them. The photographs are adequate, The major conclusion is that man isbut not very artistic aside from the one ruining the environment of East Africaof the very strange-looking Pallas's cat through his continual burning of thepeeking out from beautifully shaded _grasslands.

vegetation (this picture was taken byBernhard Grzimek). All the photographsare in black-and-white, aside from theone of the front cover of the dust jacket,which, unfortunately, is not a particularlygood picture in the first place and further-more is poorly reproduced.

I recommend Wild Cats of the Worldto collectors of books on natural history.It is a thorough work and brings together

many observations on wild cats that onlyone who has spent many years ofmethodical research would find. Thereare over 460 entries in Guggisberg'sbibliography to this book, a very handyreference source. The author has truly.done an admirable job in compiling theavailable material on wild cats and hehas also discussed controversial accountsof animal behaviour with astute criticism.

Self-destructive man and theAfrican grasslandsEast African Grasslands by D. Vesey-Fitzgerald, East African Publishing House,Nairobi, 1975, price: Ksh. 35/-.

For example, in the Miombo, theinhabitants seasonally burn the treesand bushes for the purpose of clearing aa small area for cultivation. However, moreoften than not, the fires get out of controland destroy much woody vegetationunnecessarily. The rain follows and causessevere soil erosion because the land hasno grass cover or bush to hold back thesoil. Eventually, the area becomes coveredwith a coarse and fibrous grass whichprovides poor grazing not only for domesticstock but also for many wild animals.Mr. Vesey-Fitzgerald believes that nowis the time for the governments of EastAfrica to implement a rational plan toconserve the grasslands and forests. Themost i.nportant step is to control indis-criminate burning which is changingthe ecology of the woodlands.

It is a pity that Vesey-Fitzgerald diedbefore this book was published for heprobably would have supervised theprinting of the photographs and would haveinsisted on some improvements. Many ofthe colour photographs are out of focusand the contrast of the black-and-whitepictures is weak. While the text itself iswell printed on good quality paper, the lay-out is sloppy. The first page shows a mapwith many arrows on it and no label totell the reader what he is looking at.It is impossible to read the name of thepublisher on the title page because thetype face has been covered by an illus-tration. These imperfections are annoy-ing and should have been spotted by thepublisher. However, despite these defects,Vesey-Fitzgerald has written a good shortintroduction to the grasslands of EastAfrica which will be especially useful forsecondary school students.

Esmond Bradley Martin.

31

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• LOW BUDGETJET FLIGHTS TO LONDON

AND CONNECTIONS EVERYWHERE• HOTEL & LODGE BOOKINGS IN EAST AFRICA

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SAFARI OF YOUR CHOICE IS WITH US.FOR FREE BROUCHURES SEND

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