Shrinking giraffe numbers highlight Kenyan wildlife crisis
Conservationists have warned that Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve is facing a wildlife crisis as new research reveals that giraffe numbers have fallen by 95 percent in the past two decades.
Other grazing species, including warthogs, hartebeest and impala, have also catastrophic declines, according to the survey by the International Livestock Research Institute published in the current edition of the British Journal of Zoology.
The results are in line with previous research suggesting declines in the populations of once abundant wildebeest, gazelles and zebras.
While those figures are bad news for giraffes and other grazers, they also suggest a dismal future for the animals’ predators, which include lions and cheetahs. Researchers say that human encroachment into the region poses the principal threat to wildlife.
“The situation we documented paints a bleak picture and requires urgent and decisive action if we want to save this treasure from disaster,” said study author Joseph Ogutu.
“Our study offers the best evidence to date that wildlife losses in the reserve are widespread and substantial, and that these trends are likely linked to the steady increase in human settlements on lands adjacent to the reserve.”
The main human population in the area around the Masai Mara consists of Masaai tribes. While the Masaai were once semi-nomadic herders, many are now choosing to settle in permanent communities on the borders of the park.
Increased farming has reduced grazing pastures while some tribesmen continue to hunt wildlife illegally or in retaliation breaking down fences, threatening livestock or damaging crops.
“Wildlife are constantly moving between the reserve and surrounding ranchlands and they are increasingly competing for habitat with livestock and with large-scale crop cultivation around the human settlements,” Ogutu said.