Safari Journal - November 2022
Our Great National Parks
A five-part documentary series about the world's most breathtaking national parks and the wildlife that live there, produced and narrated by president Barack Obama - who protected more public lands and waters than any other U.S. President in history.
Documentary can viewed only on NETFLIX and features footage of wildlife never before seen. From the executive producer of Blue Planet II - a Wild Space production in association with Higher Ground Productions and Freeborne Media
Part 3 — ”Tsavo National Park - Kenya ”
“Kenya’s largest national park. 8,500 square miles with 13 Thousand elephants - the land where Elephant is King and everyone there knows it.”
Tsavo National Park - home of Mt Kilimanjaro, Rhinos, Hippos, and the Yata Plateau, the longest lava flow in the world. The red soil of this area permeates everything.
There are only about 30 Super Tuskers in the world - Tsavo National Park houses 1/3 of them. Each tusk on these animals weighs about 100 pounds each.
Hornbills and Dwark Mongooses work together
The Hornbill waits in the morning for Dwarf Mongooses to stir up bugs and Giant African Land Snails for their breakfast in the undergrowth. The hornbill scoops up the rest. In return, the Hornbill acts a look out for large, flying birds that may be looking for a Mongoose breakfast themselves.
Kenya
“Some of Africa’s rarest animals—shy, striped bongos, melanistic black serval cats and small, fierce golden cats—find safety in Kenya’s high, mountainous Aberdare National Park.”
Kenya’s wildlife is probably the best known of any country in the world, with its instantly recognizable array of lions, leopards, elephants, great throngs of wildebeests and zebras in migration, as well as more than 1,000 species of colorful birds.
For More Information about Kenya…
Flamingos get their reddish-pink color from pigments found in the algae and invertebrates that they eat. The same effect is seen when shrimps change their color during cooking. - photo: Getty Images
Millions of pink flamingos congregate on alkaline lakes. Giraffes nibble from acacia treetops and rare bongos browse the understory. On mountaintops, alpine plants grow to prodigious heights—heathers can be more than 30 feet (10 m) tall.
For More Information on Tsavo National Park, Kenya…
Giraffes
Giraffes are the world’s tallest animals, up to 16 feet (5 m) tall and weighing about a ton. To maintain blood flow up to the brain their blood pressure is about twice that of other mammals; special circulatory valves keep them from fainting when their heads are lowered to forage or drink.
“THEY MADE IT! After 4.5 days of travel and over 2,600 km, ten South African giraffe arrived safely in Malawi’s Majete Wildlife Reserve.”
- Giraffe Conservation Foundation
Majete Wildlife Reserve is located in the Lower Shire Valley at the southern-most section of Africa’s Great Rift Valley in Malawi. Extensive poaching during the late 1980s and 1990s had rendered most large and medium sized mammals locally extinct. Widespread logging, human encroachment and intensive fishing further threatened the reserve, when African Parks was mandated by the Malawi Department of National Parks and Wildlife to manage and rehabilitate the reserve in 2003. This giraffe translocation is part of a large-scale and successful rewilding effort of the reserve, which is now again considered a prime wildlife destination in Malawi.
Giraffe, Majete Wildlife Reserve
To augment a previous series we published called “PREEMPTING POACHERS - the new frontier” we are posting this interesting article from National Geographic about the amazing sensory qualities of dogs working to sniff out everything from endangered plants to Grizzlies.
Dogs put their noses to work saving wildlife
They don’t just detect drugs, bombs, and cancers—dogs can sniff out the amoeba-size larvae of invasive mussels and highly endangered flowers hidden in fields.
Tule, a six-year-old Belgian Malinois scouts for bear scat near southwestern Montana’s Big Hole Valley. Grizzlies have been sighted in the area after many decades, and DNA from the scat would inform biologists and land managers working to recover this threatened species where they’re coming from.
Photograph: Adam Ferguson
BY: DOUGLAS H. CHADWICK - National Geographic
PHOTOGRAPHS BY: ADAM FERGUSON
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Botswana Predator Conservation Trust
For over two decades, the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust has been working to study and preserve wildlife in Africa.
Tusk's approach to conservation recognizes that the long term future for wildlife and Africa's other natural resources is dependent on sustainable rural development. more... Tusk believes that if conservation is to succeed and environmental degradation to be reversed then education needs to be promoted at an early age.
Cheetah Conservation Botswana (CCB) aims to preserve the nation’s cheetah population through scientific research, community outreach and conservation education, working with rural communities to promote coexistence with Botswana’s rich diversity of carnivore species.