SWT Aerial Surveillance Report November 2019

AERIAL SURVEILLANCE UNIT MONTHLY REPORT

NOVEMBER 2019

AERIAL STATISTICS

HOURS FLOWN

KMS COVERED

AREAS PATROLLED

NOVEMBER 2019

187

25,792

Tsavo East, Tsavo West, Chyulus, KARI Ranch, Rukinga Ranch, Kasigau Ranch, South Kitui National Reserve

NOVEMBER 2019

MONTHLY AERIAL PATROL MAP

MONTHLY AERIAL SUMMARY Very little poaching activity was observed by the Aerial Unit in November with only 1 recent shooting blind discovered on a helicopter patrol as well as 1 old poacher’s hideout. There was one incident of reported gunshots heard in the rhino IPZ in Chyulu Hills; however, a helicopter recce turned up no unusual activity.

Charcoal burning was only seen on a few instances in KARI, Kiboko and ground teams were sent for follow-up. This is a ranch that borders Chyulu Hills National Park, which the Trust now has secured a 25-year lease on in order to protect this threatened habitat whilst increasing the protected area available for the Chyulu ecosystem.

Human Wildlife Conflict persisted in November, with a total of 4 cases responded to by the helicopter. On one occasion, the elephants that had been reported could not be located; however, 3 other callouts resulted in the successful return of the elephants back into Chyulu Hills National Park through sections of the fence that had been lowered by teams on the ground.

Only one major livestock incursion was noted in Tsavo East during the month. A decisive KWS operation successfully removed all the herders and a follow up aerial patrol 2 days later confirmed that that area of the Park was cattle free.

In Tsavo West, there was a slightly different picture. After extensive surveys by both fixed wing and helicopter, it was estimated that there were more than 20,000 head of livestock in Tsavo West. This turned out to be a massive operation involving three aircraft, initially, from SWT (2 fixed wing and 1 helicopter), before 2 gyrocopters from Wildlife Works, and a fixed wing from KWS came to support activities. The operation resulted in a massive reduction in cattle, especially in the northern sector, where a follow up patrol discovered only 1 herd of 100 cattle and no bomas. A total of 16 arrests were made by KWS rangers on the ground whilst several thousand cattle were pushed out of the Park by fixed wing, and 11 bomas were destroyed by KWS rangers. In the southern sector, there is still many cattle remaining, but nowhere near the numbers experienced at the beginning of the operation.

Early in the month, SWT was called to assist in the search for a 6-year-old Maasai boy who had disappeared while out collecting firewood on a ranch neighbouring his home. He had been sent out with a group of girls who decided to bathe in a dam before heading back. He was instructed to go home and leave them, and unfortunately took a wrong turn on the way back and got lost. The following morning, Wildlife Works, an NGO that protects the area where the boy went missing was asked to assist in the search. Initially, some suspected tracks were found near where the boy went missing along with some clothing and a shoe. The ranch is a wild area with a healthy population of hyena and lion, so everyone quietly feared the worst. Wildlife Works deployed several teams of rangers to assist the local community in combing the ranch for the boy. They also provided two gyrocopters that flew transects for 8 hours each, in a desperate attempt to spot the boy from the air. Nothing was seen; however, by the end of the day, another set of suspected tracks was found around 20 km into the ranch. The following morning the gyrocopters were back in the air and by the end of the day, the rangers picked up newer tracks that seemed to be moving back towards home. It was too late in the day to do anything, but SWT offered to fly in a tracker dog and handler if the team was able to pick up fresh tracks in the morning.

Mid-morning on the 3rd day, SWT received a call that fresh tracks had been spotted nearby. We asked Wildlife Works to preserve the tracks and immediately loaded the plane with a dog and handler and headed for Rukinga Ranch. Upon arrival, we were collected by Keith Hellyer, one of the gyrocopter pilots who had now spent three days searching for the boy from the air. The tracks had been found by one of the Maasai search party and were roughly 10 minutes’ drive away. At this point, Keith told us that he had seen a pride of 7 lions crossing the road immediately in front of where the boy’s tracks had been found, so the stakes were high.

Upon arrival at the tracks, we were disheartened to discover that huge numbers of the Maasai search party had emerged and were continuing to emerge from out of the bush in every direction still searching for the boy. Even though they had done a good job to preserve the physical appearance of the boy’s tracks on a sandy, dirt road, their presence, criss-crossing the path that the boy had taken, meant that the dog was unable to pick up a unique scent.

The K9 team was forced to jump several junctions to try and find a set of unadulterated tracks where the dog would be able to pick up a scent to follow. Unfortunately, the road surface at each of these junctions was mostly compacted earth and it proved impossible to tell which direction he had taken. Feeling despair, the team returned to the airstrip to a small camp where the dog could rest in some shade, and Wildlife Works rangers rushed out to several nearby dams to try and locate some new tracks. It was while we waited that a radio call came in that a team had found some footprints at one such dam. Unlike the tracks that had been followed before, of a boy wearing only one shoe, these tracks were of one large and one small shoe. We waited anxiously for them to confirm the tracks and then shortly after an excited call came through again that the boy had been found.

It transpired that the boy had seen the gyrocopters flying overhead and fearing that he would be arrested for being in a protected area had hidden under bushes to avoid detection. Similarly, when cars drove by, he had dived into grass to conceal himself. In three days, he had eaten nothing and had taken water only once from a muddy dam. The reason that the footprints had changed was that he had found an abandoned shoe in the bush and put it on his one barefoot.

Although we didn’t play a direct role in his discovery, we felt privileged to have been able to give our assistance and relieved that, apart from being weak and emaciated, he was relatively healthy. Understandably, the whole ordeal was very traumatising, and the boy is still very shaken up, and we expect that it will take a long time to recover emotionally.

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Only one elephant carcass was found during November of an adult elephant. The carcass was only a few months old with its tusks intact. It was found near where an elephant had been treated twice by the KWS/SWT Mobile Veterinary Unit for a penetrating wound, suspected to be a bullet wound, to its leg. It was given a guarded prognosis at the time, so it is entirely possible that he eventually succumbed to his injuries.

The SWT helicopter assisted with a total of 5 veterinary treatments in November. Following a similar trend from the previous month, another 3 giraffes were discovered with snares, which required removal. The first two giraffes were discovered by the Wildlife Works pilot, who called SWT for assistance. One was a giraffe that had been sighted previously several months earlier, but evaded darting and then disappeared into thick forest. The other giraffe was near the Kasigau massif, and had a wire cutting into its neck. Both were treated on the same day and had their wire snares successfully removed. Later in the month, a third giraffe was seen near Finch Hatton’s lodge in Tsavo West, also with a snare. With the help of the helicopter, this one was also darted, and the snare removed. Two elephants were treated, one an ex-orphan Barsalinga, in Ithumba, with a wound on his foot. The other was a bull elephant sighted by Wildlife Works while on patrol with an old, infected arrow wound. After being darted from the helicopter, the wound was cleaned and treated, and a full recovery is expected.

A rather large development in November was an operation, conducted by the Kenya Government to evict all illegal settlements in South Kitui National Reserve. For many years, this gazetted conservation area had been overrun by settlements of both pastoralist and farming communities, with major logging occurring for the production of charcoal.

An SWT helicopter assisted in the initial surveys, and following this, government forces enforced a mass eviction on security grounds. A permanent KWS presence has been setup in South Kitui now, and regular patrols are being conducted. South Kitui is a large area, covering approximately 186,000 hectares, and will provide an incredible buffer and wildlife dispersal area for the Northern area of Tsavo East National Park.

The major highlight for November had to be a sighting of a week-old rhino calf born in Tsavo East. She had been seen by rangers a few days earlier; however, this was the first time that her sex and the identity of the mother could be confirmed. We are thrilled that the rhino population of Tsavo East now stands at 17 individuals, up from a low of 9 not too long ago.

Photographs copyright © 2019 The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust