Lewa is rich in wildlife with densities as high as anywhere in Africa. Conservation efforts are focused on the endangered species found on Lewa.

The other critical species for global conservation is the Grevy’s zebra.

This handsome animal is confined to northern Kenya and parts of Ethiopia.

Its numbers have greatly declined in unprotected areas, and it is now globally threatened.

In 1977 there were 81 Grevy’s on Lewa. Today, when they are in a rapid decline elsewhere, there are about 500 here. This figure represents 20% of the world’s population - one of only three groups under protection, and the only one managed privately.

Grevy's zebra - Equus grevyi

Shoulder height 1.5 meters
Mass 385 to 430 kilograms
Gestation 387 to 428 days

Grevy’s zebras are the largest species in the zebra family and can be distinguished from the Burchell‘s (or Plains) zebra by three major characteristics:

• Thinner black and white stripes than a plains zebra.
• White belly.
• Distinctive large rounded ears (like a bear).
• Territorial mating system

Grevy’s zebras are primarily grazers, but do eat foliage as well in times of drought.

The social organisation of the Grevy‘s zebra is very different to that of the Burchell‘s. Grevy‘s follow a territorial system which is adapted to arid environments where resources are patchily distributed. Breeding males stake out territories of between 7-12 square kilometers, containing water and grazing resources which they will defend for up to seven years. As non-lactating females range widely in search of those resources, the male is able to mate with these females as they pass through his territory. Water within their territories is also vital to lactating females. Females come into season 4-15 days after foaling, and can then mate with the resident territorial male.

In the past, Grevy’s could be found in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Northern Kenya. Now they are considered extinct in Somalia, with a small number in Ethiopia (less than 400) and the remainder in Northern Kenya. Today, Grevy’s zebras survive in only a few protected areas. Of the world population (approx. 2,500) over 20 % are found on Lewa.

Main Reasons for the Grevy’s Decline.

Before hunting was banned in 1977 an increase in firearm availability due to political breakdown led to large-scale hunting and poaching for Grevy’s zebra meat and skins. Furthermore, only 0,4% of the Grevy‘s zebra range is currently protected. This makes them vulnerable to the effects of overgrazing and poaching.

Today, overgrazing by livestock around water sources means that lactating Grevy’s females, who depend on water, cannot find water and food sources in the same place. This has caused a dramatic drop in the number of foals that survive.

Success in Lewa

The number of Grevy’s zebras has increased substantially here on Lewa. In 1991 the Lewa Grevy‘s population numbered 259 individuals and today stands close to 500.

The reasons for the population increase on Lewa are:

• Lewa is a protected area, so hunting for subsistence or commercial use has been completely eliminated.
• Livestock numbers have been greatly reduced, thereby reducing competition for grazing and water grounds for Grevy’s zebras.

In the future, the balanced populations on Lewa and in other protected areas will be vital to ensuring the survival of the Grevy’s zebra and will be used as a reservoir for restocking the national parks.

Marwell Zoo has supported Grevy’s zebra research since 1999. Their funding has been invaluable for both the logistical requirements of fieldwork on Grevy’s zebra and for the support of the research staff who collect and analyse the data.

Two activities funded by Marwell, which are of particular significance to Grevy’s zebra research, are the foal patrols and the ‘mark-recapture’ programme which have been conducted during 2002. Both studies will give critical insight into the population dynamics of the species, which is fundamental for their future management both on Lewa and beyond its boundaries.

Black Rhino

Status: CITES, Appendix I

Lewa started out as a rhino sanctuary and the black rhino remains Lewa’s flagship species. To date, there are 32 black rhino (6% of the national population). This population has provided individuals for translocation to other protected areas, where new populations are being established.

White Rhino

Status: CITES, Appendix I

32 white rhino now live on Lewa. These rhino populations have been successfully breeding on Lewa and have gone from 25 in 1998 to the present number.

Black Rhinocerous - Diceros bicornis michaeli

Black Rhino

Shoulder height 1.6 meters
Mass 900 to 1,000 kilograms
Gestation 16 months, single calf
Speed 45 km/h maximum
Diet Browser and grazer, preferring long grass. Usually found in thickets, where it eats shrubs, twigs, and leaves. Thorns present no problem.

Feces Usually defecates in piles along various routes. Dung is scattered with the hind legs and is easily identified by its fibrous, woody texture.
Spoor More compact and smaller than that of the white rhino. Urinates backwards against vegetation and then kicks back, often breaking up the vegetation. This action is a form of communicating and is also sexually related. The female will ”spray-kick“ when in season and the male will do it more frequently when consorting a female.

The hook-lipped, or black, rhino has a distinctive prehensile lip. It holds its head higher and is smaller than the wide-lipped, or white, rhino. An agile animal, the black rhino can display considerable aggression, although it is usually shy and solitary. Its eyesight is poor, but it has a good sense of smell and possesses extraordinary hearing. The tail is held erect while running. The black rhino has a wide vocal range and can possibly communicate like an elephant below the range of human hearing. Breathing is an important part of communication. Unlike the white rhino-calf, the black rhino calf normally runs behind its mother.

Although there were an estimated 20,000 black rhino in Kenya in the 1970s, by 1982 the population was reduced to fewer than 400. Since then, their number has increased and now stands at over 420. The number in fenced areas has risen at an average rate of four percent each year when the conditions are good.

The main cause of decline was, and still remains, poaching for horn. Poaching is generally carried out by heavily armed bandits or shifta and is aided by internal corruption. Furthermore, the unchecked spread of human development into areas that were formerly wilderness has resulted in a loss of habitat for an animal that has been remarkably successful for 40 million years.

Since 1984 the Kenyan government has pursued an active program devoted to the recovery of Kenya’s black rhino, with efforts centering on the development of specially protected or fenced sanctuaries on government and private land, such as Lewa. With the continued poaching of rhino in a number of communal areas and state parks, private rhino sanctuaries have proved invaluable.

Rhino populations under custodianship both on private land (Solio Ranch) and in some state-run areas (such as Nairobi National Park) have provided animals to set up new populations (including reintroducing animals into an electrified-fence sanctuary inside the KWS-run Tsavo West and Meru National Parks). The private sector thus plays an important part in the conservation of rhino in Kenya and currently supplies many of the animals being used to restock state parks.

Kenya is currently the stronghold of the Eastern African subspecies Diceros bicornis michaeli, being home to about 88 % of the population in 1995. Like South Africa and Namibia, Kenya is using translocation to set up new populations while aiming to ensure that donor populations remain productive. The public plight of the black rhino has attracted support from many different areas. Today, scientists are formulating a method of «fingerprinting» rhino horn based on the nutrient content of each specific rhino conservation area. This will enable them to pinpoint the area a rhino came from, its family group, and even its preferred diet. It is also an important step toward eradicating poaching, as scientists will be able to determine where a rhino was when it was killed.

White Rhinocerous - Ceratotherium simum

The White rhino

Status: CITES, Appendix I

Shoulder height 1.8 meters
Mass Up to 2,000 kilograms
Gestation 18 months, single calf at three-year intervals
Diet They have a wide mouth and thus are efficient grazers.

Feces They deposit dung in large piles. Droppings are large and darkish green in colour when fresh and turn black with age. They resemble elephant dung in texture and size. A territorial bull will urinate backwards in a fine, controlled spray.

Spoor Spoor is larger than that of a black rhino.

It is widely believed that the white rhino take their name from the Afrikaans word for wide-lipped. The jaw and head are square, and the head is carried low. Because the of the nuchal hump the white rhino is one of the few animals unable to swim. The white rhino is usually of a calmer temperament then the black rhino. The nearest domestic relation to the rhino is the horse and the white rhino in behaviour is more like one of the heavy breeds of horse while the far more highly strung black rhino in temperament more closely resembles the thoroughbred. In both species of rhino, unlike the horse, eyesight is poor but the senses of hearing and smell are extremely acute. When the white rhino is scared or excited it will run with its tail tightly curled over its back. In flight the calf runs in front of the mother.

The white rhino prefers grassland or open wooded areas and prefers short grass to long. Because of their habitat preferences and calmer natures they fell pray to the trade in horn before the black rhino were targeted and were rendered extinct in a large portion in their former range.

The white rhino that are now found in Kenya were all introduced to the country from stocks in South Africa. In 2000 there were an estimated 130 white rhinos in Kenya. At the beginning of 2002 there are 32 within the Conservancy and they are all breeding well.

Ear Notching Rhino

Lewa prides itself on being able to locate each rhino more than once a week. To maintain this high standard we have implemented a way of marking the rhinos in a relatively natural way by cutting notches into their ears.

The white rhino mother and calf groups are known and easy to identify. However, once the calves leave their mothers and start to mix with different rhino groups, identification becomes much harder. Therefore, we have only notched the ears of sub adult and male white rhino.

Unlike black rhino, which live in thick bush and therefore acquire many cuts and tears in their ears, the white rhino prefers open plains and although they do acquire nicks in their ears, this usually happens slowly with age.

To ear-notch a rhino firstly it has to be immobilised and then a notch is cut out of the ear. Antibiotics are applied afterwards and then the animal is revived. This is a quick and relatively painless process. To date we have notched 24 of our rhino.

Sitatunga – spectacular aquatic antelope – are extremely rare in Kenya, and in order to safeguard their future, some animals were translocated from the only site where they were known to occur to the swamp at Lewa, where a substantial population has now built up.

Ecology

Diet: leaves, buds shoots, fruit, reeds and grass

Sitatunga are both grazers and browsers, They have a prehensile tongue that allows them to grab long reeds and flowering plants. At night they are known to emerge from their protected habitat to dry land to graze on grass and continue into the forest to browse on foliage. Sitatunga tend to stay in one feeding area for several days and then suddenly shift to a new area. The males can break tree branches with their horns to get the bark and vegetation. They have been reported also to be able to reach higher vegetation by rearing on their hindquarters.

The Sitatunga's Details

• Subspecies: Tragelaphus spekii
• Order: Artiodactyla
• Kiswahili name: Nzohe
• Diet: Browser/grazer
• Life span: up to 19 years
• Gestation period: 7.5 months
• Habitat: Swamps, marshes and wetlands
• Predators: humans, pythons, leopards and lions

Sitatunga move through the swamps on established pathways. Major arteries are up to seven meters wide with a number of side pathways leading to feeding areas and exit areas to dry land. In areas of tall reeds these pathways may appear to be tunnels.

The best time to spot the sitatunga is between sunrise and 10AM and also from 5PM to sunset. They emerge from the swamps at darkness or when undisturbed. Sitatunga normally sleep on platforms of dry vegetation, which they trample and circle to condense. Each animal makes its own platform which may be used several times.

Reproduction and calving

Although mating occurs throughout the year, most births are reported during the dry season. The calves are born on a dry trampled platform in the swamp.

The gestation period is 7.5 months and they only give birth to a single calf. Females reproduce at yearly intervals.

The calf is well hidden and remains secluded on the platform for several weeks only with short visits from its mother for suckling. Although nursed for 4-6 months, it is more independent of its mother than most antelopes. The ties between mother and young do not last long, as sub-adult sitatunga are often found on their own.

The calf’s initial movements are awkward, sometimes they even fall into the water. However, they will soon learn how to move slowly thought the swamp to avoid being seen.

Social life

Sitatunga are semi-social, sedentary and non-territorial. They depend on swamps for a year round supply of rich food and shelter. They are shy and very hard to spot. Movements through the swamp are slow and deliberate. Although essentially solitary animals, they associate for short periods of time for mating. Because their home-ranges are exceptionally small, sitatunga have frequent contact with other sitatunga along their home-range boundaries. Occasionally, small mixed groups are temporarily formed.

Spending most of its time among floating vegetation in the swamp, the sitatunga’s elongated hooves and flexible toe joints are excellent adaptations for moving through their wet environment. Sitatunga are excellent swimmers; however, on dry land, they appear to walk in a very clumsy manner. When threatend, they flee into water and have been known to submerge themselves completely, with only their nostrils above the waterline.

Although they can be seen throughout the day, sitatunga are most active at dawn and dusk.

Adult males tend to avoid each other. Nocturnal barking (can go on for up to ten minutes) may serve as a spacing function between the males. Aggression is rare, so this communication may prevent males fighting.

Sitatunga also have a variety of contact calls, including a short bark, a loud sneeze and a “squeak”. Females give off one single high-pitched bark as an alarm. The calves have been reported to sound like a sheep!

Sitatunga have a long shaggy coat. The hair is thin, oily and water repellent. The male has faint stripes and the female has 6-8 vertical stripes that are more defined. Other markings include white spots on the cheeks, highs, throat and face.

Another adaptation is the extremely narrow hoof (up to 10 cm – 4 inches in length) that enables the sitatunga to move easily throughout the swamp.

Sitatunga are only breeding on three places in the whole of Kenya;
Saiwa Swamp National Park in Western Kenya, Lake Victoria and here on Lewa.

Lewa is rich in wildlife with densities as high as anywhere in Africa. As a result Lewa often participates in the translocation of animals to neighbouring conservation areas and National Parks. Species that have been moved include reticulated giraffe, Grevy's and Burchell's zebra and rhinocerous.

We'll update this page with any translocations which have been taking place at Lewa as they happen and when they happen.

Lewa is very often called upon to help and support the various dealings with the emergencies of wildlife because if its expertise and experience.

Everything from elephants to birds has been helped throughout the years. Our strength is that we are always mobile, responsive and have the knowledge to deal with most situations on any day of the week and any hour of the day.

Below you will find some of the cases we have dealt with recently.

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy could not operate successfully without a huge back-up support of planes, machinery, radios, mechanics and dogs. As well as the two-seater Super Cub, used for surveillance and security, there is one more fixed-wing aircraft, and a host of trucks. Plus, of course, a yard full of maintenance and repair workshops which are constantly busy countering the ravages of hard terrain and constant use. The maintenance of fencing posts and electrical fences is ongoing.

Tracker dogs
In March 1998, the British army donated two trained tracker dogs to LWC which, working a long side a well trained tracker team, act as a strong deterrent to potential poachers. Bonnie, a German shepherd and Murphy, a yellow Labrador had previously seen operational service in Northern Ireland and adapted quickly to the very different climate and working conditions of northern Kenya.

It took a little longer for their new handlers to adjust to the concept that the dog’s nose could be better than a human’s vision but once they had gained confidence, training advanced. Within months the dogs proved to be worth their weight in rhino horn as their noses led to the arrest and conviction of several poachers. They have since then received huge recognition from the Government and local police.

Bonnie later retired and is now looking after the two orphaned cheetah cubs on Lewa, and she is doing a splendid job.

Murphy also retired and he is now living on a farm nearby, enjoying his retirement.

At the moment we have two tracker dogs here on Lewa; Sam, a huge black Labrador and Punch, a cross-breed. Both are doing well and when they are not out in the field working they are on a serious training programme to keep them fit.

We here at Lewa and the many communities with whom we work often come into contact with animals struggling to survive, as a result of inter-animal feuds or occasionally human actions.

These animals may be orphaned but rather than let nature take its course the human instinct is to help. What is needed is quick and efficient support otherwise they will die. In most cases orphans have been found in the areas where Lewa is supporting the community, where Lewa’s expertise in animal husbandry is well known, such as Namunyak and Il Ngwesi.

Some of these orphans will be handed on to KWS or Daphne Sheldrick’s elephant orphanage in Nairobi for further treatment, but most of them will be released back into the wild in the area where they originally came from or in a new area that is ready for re-stocking (see story about Omni, the orphaned black rhino that has gone to Il Ngwesi).

Lewa’s history and philosophy is closely liked to the elephants of the Samburu and Laikipia districts.

There are around 3000 of these, a substantial part of the free-ranging elephant population outside national parks in Kenya.

Elephants’ habits have changed drastically since the mid-sixties when heavy poaching in the north forced them to alter their migration patterns. In the dry season, the few permanent water sources that they used to visit frequently were becoming battle zones between poachers and cattle herders.

So they began to migrate south to avoid these areas on a route which took them from the Samburu Namunyak area, via Lewa to the Ngare Ndare on the edge of Mount Kenya. In 1984 Lewa hosted its first herd of 300 elephant. Each elephant eats up to 300lbs of grass, trees and bushed in one day.

Inevitably the herd of 300 caused problems among the local agricultural community. There were too many bulls, fond of pulling down trees and reluctant to move back north again during the wet season because of the escalating threat of poachers.

The first Scientific Advisory Committee meeting, set up in response to this problem, resolved that troublesome bulls should be rounded up and relocated as quickly as possible. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) funded the relocation to Kora National Reserve.

The problem of what to do with the elephants and how to protect them helped to define the LWC’s philosophy of re-stocking the wilder regions of northern Kenya. LWC could no longer be considered as a single entity. If its work was to have any long-term impact on the wildlife of northern Kenya it needed to embrace a much larger and bolder scheme, pulling together the support of neighbouring communities against poaching and opening up the whole of the migratory corridor between Mt Kenya and the Samburu area.

LWC has been working with the Namunyak and Il Ngwesi communities in the north to develop areas as sources of tourism, as a result poaching has been reduced. Because tourism brings extra money into the area, the locals now appreciate the value of elephants, and co-operate with the work to protect them.

Between August and September in 1999, local Namunyak people reported no less than seven occasions when baby elephants had fallen into wells built by the pastoralist farmers. This was not because elephant babies suddenly developed a vertigo problem, but because Namunyak people were now concerned for the welfare of the elephants.

Elephants are now choosing to stay in Samburu during the dry season. Research by Ian Douglas Hamilton shows that this is a direct result of the increased security in the area as their new routes correspond closely with the protected areas of LWC, Namunyak and Il Ngwesi. Where they strayed from these protected areas, or had to pass from one to another, they did so as quickly as possible.

Poaching does continue and the need for vigilance remains constant. At the risk of being accused of anthropomorphism, however it seems that the elephant is more than capable of responding to the overtures of man and seeking his protection when it is given. LWC’s aim is not let them down.

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