drought spreads in africa

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Drought Kills Wildlife in East Africa's Sanctuaries, Hits Annual Migration

 

February 20, 2006 — By Rodrique Ngowi, Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya — A searing drought has killed dozens of hippopotamuses and

other wild animals in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania, and disrupted the annual

migration of wildebeests and zebras between the two East African nations,

conservation officials said.

 

Maasai warriors and others are driving tens of thousands of cattle inside

Kenya's wildlife sanctuaries in search of pastures and water -- risking attacks

by wild animals, Kenya Wildlife Service spokeswoman Connie Maina said Saturday.

 

The drought has so far killed at least 60 hippopotamuses in Kenya's wildlife

sanctuaries. The animals -- the third-largest living land mammals, after

elephants and white rhinos -- need large quantities of water or mud to cool

bodies, which can weigh up to 3.5 tons.

 

" Whenever there is a drought, the first casualties are usually hippos who live

in the water, " Maina said.

 

Some 40 endangered Grevys zebra -- the largest, wildest and most untamable of

the three zebra species remaining in Africa -- have died from anthrax near the

Samburu Game Reserve, Maina said. Natural anthrax's bacillus spores can live for

decades in dry soil and are ingested by animals rummaging for vegetation during

droughts.

 

Some of Africa's most rare and treasured species live in natural habitats in

Kenya and Tanzania, in at least 80 national parks and game reserves. Tanzania,

East Africa's largest country, has set aside more than 25 percent of its land

for the conservation of the rich wildlife.

 

In Kenya's Amboseli National Park, the drought has reduced large parts of the

land to a dusty field.

 

Hundreds of buffaloes, water bucks, elephants and other large animals that need

plenty of water are suffering in the drought, wildlife officials in Kenya and

Tanzania said.

 

" We see the physical appearance of the big herbivores like elephants and

buffaloes getting worse, " said Samson Lenjir, deputy senior warden of Kenya's

Maasai Mara Game Reserve. " The situation is expected to get worse because the

rains are expected in mid March. "

 

The drought has partly disrupted the migration of more than 1.5 million

wildebeests, zebras and other herbivores from the Maasai Mara to Tanzania's

fabled Serengeti National Park.

 

The annual migration has been described as the most dazzling wildlife spectacle

on earth.

 

The animals thunder into the Serengeti plains to feed off the new grass and to

calve " because the grass is more nutritious, with a lot of calcium, which is

crucial for milk production, " said Titus Mlengeya, chief veterinary officer with

the Tanzania National Parks Authority.

 

The animals migrate into the Serengeti through the western, central and eastern

corridors. The rains, however, ended prematurely along all routes except for the

west, the only area where animals have calved well, wildlife officials said.

 

The rain failure triggered a critical shortage of pastures and water for the

large herds of animals that had begun to calf.

 

" They have no milk and are forced to move frequently. In that confusion, many

calves are lost and die because they cannot survive on anything other than

milk, " Mlengeya told the AP.

 

In the Tsavo west and east national parks, half of their more than 10,000

elephants have left the sanctuaries to search for water in the nearby hills.

 

Source: Associated Press

 

 

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