Wildlife blog

UPDATE: The Economist blogs about the Cooking and Hospitality School

Education is a strategic social investment, benefitting both the local community and the private sector

In early January 2012, Karen Blixen Camp in the Mara North Conservancy is proud to open its ‘Cooking and Hospitality School’. With no secondary school in the local area, more than 50% of the the Maasai youth find themselves in constant unemployment, contributing to the cycle of poverty. The camp as any other tourist facility relies on staff to look after its visitors and enhance their safari experience. Through this hospitality school the local youth will have access to affordable education. The camp’s objective is to enable graduated chefs and waiters to seek employment at camps in the Mara and further afield. Located at the camp’s premises on the Mara River, the education centre buildings have been constructed entirely from recycled materials contributing to the camp’s major green environmental commitments.

The 18 month course is divided into three sections – two six month learning skills modules separated by a six month attachment. The programme leader and head tutor is Frederik Olesen who has had five years significant culinary experience in several top London restaurants, including the Chelsea Brasserie. Eight students have been selected from applications and interviews and they will also undertake Maths & IT training within the hospitality curriculum.

In addition to the cooking school, Karen Blixen Camp will be making available IT, Literacy and Foreign Language adult learning classes for all staff at the camp.

Karen Blixen Camp believes education is a strategic social investment that effectively contributes to the betterment of the local communities as well as the private sector itself.

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Since the middle of the 20th century, Masai Mara-Serengeti has been one of the last great areas in Africa where studies of wildlife in its natural habitat have been possible while relatively unaffected by civilization. Therefore we can be happy that much of the knowledge of the behavior of mammals as well as the dynamics of plants vs. herbivores and herbivores vs. carnivores is gathered from intensive research projects carried out in this border region between Kenya and Tanzania. The results of the research are collected in the books Serengeti 1, 2 and 3 edited by A.R.E Sinclair.

However, the conditions have changed radically over the years. Civilization is moving closer. The farms are encroaching on nature from all sides and both the local population, the Maasai, and their herds of cattle are growing ominously. These circumstances are reflected in a decreasing population of wildlife, which has been determined in numerous scientific papers, even though all correlations between civilization and wildlife have not been uncovered. Consequently, current and new research projects must address this problem.

Therefore, Albatros Travel and Karen Blixen Camp are supporting, sponsoring and monitoring new research projects. Currently, Bachelor of Biology and Copenhagen University thesis student, Cæcilie Willumsgard, is conducting a new elephant research project in Masai Mara. She is registering and photographing all elephants for a comprehensive “person” database, containg information on special characteristics, age, sex, current location, calves and any noticeable deviations. The information will be integrated with a database that the renowned elephant researcher Joyce Poole is working on.

    Cæcilie Willumsgaard at work

In the coming years, the elephants will be followed closely and their current location entered into the database along with any new relevant information. Visitors, guides and anyone else interested will be invited to participate and send in photos with coordinates. These observations will be added to the database provided that the information is deemed valid, e.g. an identifiable photograph complete with coordinates and a timestamp.

The purpose of registering the elephants individually is that we can get a very precise understanding of the evolution of the total population, their family patterns, migration routes and responses to environmental change. All in all, it can lead to a greater understanding of the elephants and consequently a greater understanding of the necessary conservation-related initiatives.

In conservation circles, there is a certain reluctance towards studies and campaigns to preserve the larger, spectacular species such as elephant, rhino and lion, because the focus should be on diversity and the ecological contexts. Yet, the elephant is one of the most dominant key species of the savannah, and probably plays the biggest role in the condition of the landscape, and so, one might argue that the preservation of the elephant and its habitat means that you get everything else in the bargain.

Research and safari

At Karen Blixen Camp, we aim to create cohesion and understanding between research and safari and provide an extra dimension for a stay at the camp. Conditions permitting, our researchers will tell our guests about the work, join the guests on safari or bring the guests on observations.

As you can read in the book by elephant researchers Joyce Poole and Cynthia Moss, a whole new world opens up when you are closely studying elephants, and you should not take anything for granted. In recent weeks, for instance, we have found relatively many males around the traditional herds of females and their calves, even with no mating activity. Below, I have attached a few photos of a baby elephant, in very intimate contact with a large male, where the small elephant puts his trunk in the male's mouth. You won’t find that in ”the big elephant handbook”.

Cæcilie has found that elephants in the area surrounding Karen Blixen Camp, also known as Mara North Conservancy, frequently meet in the Mara Triangle and around Musiara and that they apparently mix with each other in different ways. All in all, it paints a picture of a large clan, where everyone, or most, are acquainted and likely related. In the first weeks, a large predominance of males was observed (also not according to “the elephant handbook”) which would indicate that they are gathering to raid the farms on the edge of the reservation (one of the elephants had a visible spear wound) or that the elephant population is feeling pressured.

A third very significant observation is that the elephants almost vanished like snow in the sun, when large herds of white-bearded wildebeest suddenly immigrated on February 9-10. The latter observation is in line with previous observations that suggest that elephants do not like the large migratory herds.  Perhaps, they are disturbing the internal communication of the elephants?

Suddenly, many questions arise, and the more we can answer, the easier we can preserve it all in a world where man intrudes everywhere.

By Søren Rasmussen, owner of Albatros Travel and co-owner of Karen Blixen Camp

   Large male attends to baby elephant
 

It is very rarely reported that one animal will help other species to escape a hunting predator. Only Disney displays such sceneries.

However, on the 30th of August guests from New Zealand were so fortunate to witness a female Grant’ gazelle help a baby Thomson to escape a pair of hunting jackals.

A few km drive from Leopard George, Nicholas, our safari guide spotted a pair of jackals who were hunting a young Thomson’ gazelle. The mother Thompson gazelle was trying her best to protect her little offspring, but she was too easily overwhelmed by the jackals. By chance a female Grant gazelle was grazing nearby. And her maternity instincts must have been evoked as she rushed to rescue the young Thompson fighting the two jackals ferociously.

One jackal eluded the two mothers and continued to chase the young Thomson’ gazelle. But the jackal gave up when a spotted hyena arrived on the scene. Luckily the hyena was on his own and the baby Thomson’ gazelle managed to escape both him and the jackals.

It was really astonishing to watch a female Grant gazelle help the baby Thomson’ gazelle escape the predators.