Kenya rounds up prey for starving lions
Written By:AFP , Posted: Wed, Feb 10, 2010

Kenyan game rangers on Wednesday began rounding up thousands of zebras and other herbivores to be moved to a reserve where starving lions have been attacking livestock.

The spectacular nationwide operation, launched in Soysambu conservancy by the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS), is due to last until the end of the month in what will go down as one of Africa's largest ever animal translocations.

Shortly after daybreak, rangers in helicopters rounded up startled galloping zebras into a large V-shaped tarpaulin enclosure.

The animals at the narrow end of the enclosure were allowed through into an adjoining pen and from there they were loaded onto trucks, with each carrying some two dozen zebras.

KWS aims to move some 7,000 animals in all, zebra and wildebeest.

At least 88 zebras had already been captured Wednesday, hours into the operation.

Around 1,000 animals will come from Soysambu, near the Rift Valley city of Nakuru, a private conservancy owned by Delamere Estates.

The remainder will be taken from several other reserves.

The operation, costing 103 million shillings (1.3 million dollars), will be carried out in four phases and run to February 28, KWS officials said.

The plan is to restock Amboseli, some 300 kilometres (186 miles) from Soysambu, with natural prey so as to prevent hyenas and lions from attacking livestock in homes around the park.

Charles Musyoki, a scientist with KWS explained that Amboseli park is a "dry season feeding refuge for herbivores" where animals jostle around watering holes and patches of pasture then leave when rainfall resumes in the regions they migrated from.

But last year the animals did not move out of the park due to the prolonged dry spell.

"We lost significant numbers of wildebeests and zebras. Over 60 percent of zebras and wildebeests were lost in that ecosystem," Musyoki said.

The attacks on domestic animals came after Amboseli's predators ran out of prey after the massive drought-related deaths of herbivores.

"The deaths created an imbalance in the number of carnivores and herbivores in the park resulting in a shortage of the lions' and hyenas' normal food," KWS spokesman Paul Udoto said.

"It is expected that the restocking will restore the balance of animals within the park and reduce the lion and hyena attacks on livestock," Udoto explained.

In August, KWS said Kenya was losing 100 lions each year as cattle herders killed them in retaliation for attacks on their stock.

But habitat destruction, disease and the rising human population also played a role in the drop of their population to the current 2,000 from 2,749 animals seven years ago.

Last year's drought was one of the worst in years across eastern Africa.

Kenya's last massive animal transfer was in 2005, targeting 400 elephants from an over-crowded coastal reserve to a vast inland park, but that had to be halted due to drought that threatened their survival in their new home.

The translocation was dubbed "the single largest translocation of animals ever undertaken since Noah's Ark."

I think the San Diego Wild Animal Park is better run.

It is sort of like one lie, leading to another lie and another, and so on. You start tinkering with nature and before long, something is broke, then when you move to fix that, two more things break. Really sad to see how screwed up the wildlife management program in Kenya is considering where the country was 50 years ago.

Only in Kenya. And their way is so correct that they want to impose it on other African countries. Go figure.

Somehow, I found this statement very funny:

quote:

The translocation was dubbed "the single largest translocation of animals ever undertaken since Noah's Ark."

Sad. Very sad.

Brett

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06sPsseO-O4


Video of round-up

The CNN article listed the lions as part of the "Big Five", they being the five most popular animals for tourists to view

There aren't too many lions in Amboseli, there are too many people in and around it. The population has quadrupled since independence and is due to hit 65 million by 2050. This together will the incessant tribalism will see the end of Kenya.

start feeding kenyans to the lions and solve two problems in one shot