Kenya is moving 50 elephants to a new home after overcrowding in the Mwea National Reserve has seen the creatures stray into nearby human settlements and damage local ecosystems. The last national wildlife census recorded 156 elephants at Mwea, more than three times the reserve's capacity. As a result, elephants have strayed into nearby villages, damaging crops, infrastructure and property. A family of elephants from the Mwea National Reserve walk out of a special transportation container during a translocation exercise at the Aberdare National Park, in Mweiga, Nyeri County, Kenya October 14, 2024. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya During a two-week mission to relocate the animals from the 42 square km (16 square miles) Mwea reserve to the more spacious Aberdare National Park, wildlife speci...
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Visitors to Kenya from across the world will no longer require a visa from January, President William Ruto said on Tuesday. Ruto said his government had developed a digital platform to ensure all visitors would receive an electronic travel authorisation in advance, instead of needing to apply for a visa. "It shall no longer be necessary for any person from any corner of the globe to carry the burden of applying for a visa to come to Kenya," he said in a speech in the capital Nairobi at an event to mark 60 years of independence from Britain. FILE PHOTO: A male lion lays near a female after mating in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, October 14, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner Ruto has long advocated for visa-free travel within the African continent. At a conference in the Re...
Read MoreHundreds of youths from the Maasai pastoralists in Kenya gathered on Saturday at a wildlife sanctuary to participate in "Maasai Olympics," a ceremony promoted by conservationists as an alternative rite of passage for young men in the community. The spectacle, in which youthful morans or warriors compete in various games and takes place once every two years, was held in Kimana Sanctuary on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro near Kenya's border with Tanzania. A Maasai Moran falls after throwing a javelin as he competes in in a social sporting event dubbed the Maasai Olympics to offer the warriors an alternative to killing lions as part of their traditional rite of passage, in the Kimana sanctuary, at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, near the Kenya-Tanzania border in Kimana, Kajiado, Kenya...
Read MoreA blindfold calms the large black and white augur buzzard as two men glue a prosthetic leg into an insert on her body to replace the one that she lost. The female is one of many injured birds of prey that turn up at Simon Thomsett’s Kenyan rehabilitation centre, most of which, like her, have been crippled by electrocution. The problem has progressively grown as Kenya has upgraded its electricity network, replacing wooden poles with steel-reinforced concrete, which can be conductive, and hanging inadequately insulated power lines between them, conservationists say. A little sparrowhawk is seen at the Soysambu Raptor Centre inside Soysambu conservancy in Nakuru, Kenya April 12, 2022. Picture taken April 12, 2022. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi That and the lack of deterrent markers alon...
Read MoreBlack Rhino extinction risk sharply increased by killing of specific female rhinos
New research from The University of Manchester, in collaboration with Kenyan conservationists and scientists, has examined data from the Critically Endangered Kenyan black rhino populations which suggest that individuals really matter when assessing the impact of poaching on species’ survival chances. The research published today in journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, demonstrates that poaching combined with individual rhino’s reproductive variance, or how successful mums are at raising young, leads to a greater than first thought risk to the survival of the black rhino. In the case of these rhino, reproductive variance increased extinction risk by as much as 70% when combined with poaching. Within black rhino populations (and most likely in most animals), some indiv...
Read MoreStill dizzy from the transquilizer, a mountain bongo made its first uncertain steps outside captivity as conservationists in Kenya opened a sanctuary they hope can bring the endemic forest antelope back from the brink of extinction. A combination of disease, poaching and loss of forest habitat from illegal logging and agriculture have left fewer than 100 mountain bongos in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). A critically endangered female Mountain Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci) is seen at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy near Nanyuki, Kenya, March 9, 2022. REUTERS/Baz Ratner But this week conservationists released five of the large chestnut-coloured antelopes, which is native to the equatorial forests of Kenya, into the 776 ...
Read MoreUnited Nations negotiators have agreed a roadmap for a global plastic treaty that would address plastic production and design, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters, in what delegates said was a key step to agreeing an ambitious deal. U.N. member states are meeting this week in Nairobi to agree plans for the first global agreement to tackle plastic pollution, a soaring environmental crisis that is destroying marine habitats and contaminating the food chain. A 30-foot monument dubbed "turn off the plastic tap" by Canadian activist and artist Benjamin von Wong, made with plastic waste collected from Kibera slums, is seen at the venue of the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5), at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Headquarters in Gi...
Read MoreSuckled by their mother Bora and guarded by a watchful male, rare new-born twin baby elephants ingested nourishment that conservationists hope will enable them to survive a perilous start to life in a Kenyan safari park. As yet unnamed, the pair were born this week in the Samburu National Reserve, becoming only the second set of twin calves ever encountered by local charity Save the Elephants. "Twins form around only 1% of births. Quite often the mothers don't have enough milk to support two calves," the charity's founder, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, said on Thursday. The last time Save the Elephants saw elephant twins was in 2006. "Sadly both calves died shortly after birth," Douglas-Hamilton said. "The next few days will be touch and go for the new twins but we all have our f...
Read MoreKenya's tourism industry has started to pull out of its deep COVID-19-induced slump as local travellers take advantage of lower prices, the government said on Wednesday, but foreign visitor numbers are still well below pre-pandemic levels. The East African nation expects the sector, typically one of its top sources of foreign exchange, to earn 173 billion shillings ($1.5 billion) this year, up 18.5% from last year, the government said. "The recovery seems to have begun," George Gitonga, the acting chief executive of the state-run Tourism Research Institute, told Reuters after the figures were released. FILE PHOTO: Tourists drive past a giraffe, amid the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at Tsavo West National Park in Tsavo region, Kenya, September 21, 2021. R...
Read MoreThe majestic sight of elephants roaming beneath Mount Kilimanjaro has long lured throngs of wildlife-lovers to Amboseli National Park on Kenya’s border with Tanzania. Yet the free movement of some 2,000 Amboseli elephants, along with two dozen other wildlife species plus cows owned by local Maasai people, may be under threat - from avocados. Kenyan agricultural company KiliAvo Fresh Ltd, which has farms near Amboseli on nearly 175 acres of land, is building nurseries and preparing to grow the fruit, whose popularity is growing worldwide due to its high nutritional value. Elephants are seen within the Kimana Sanctuary, part of a crucial wildlife corridor that links the Amboseli National Park to the Chyulu Hills and Tsavo protected areas, within the Amboseli ecosystem in Kimana, Ke...
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