Kenya: Data to send Rebekah over the moon

Apologies for the delay, but I was busy packing up and getting back to Europe.

Team 2 left Enonkishu last Friday morning. A month of expedition and data collection at Enonkishu conservancy is over. After this year’s final vehicle transects on Thursday morning and data input, Rebekah presented a summary of our work effort.

Group 2 completed 14 vehicle and 6 walking transects, 3 point count observations from Kileleoni hill and 20 four hour shifts of waterhole observation. During the vehicle transects, 619 observations were recorded in 43.5 hours on the activity (218 person hours) and a total number of 4,541 animals from 28 different species were counted. 23.5 hours were spent on the walking transects (141 person hours), where 59 observations were recorded and 293 animals from 21 species were counted. In 3 hours (18 person hours) of point count observations, a total number of 99 animals of 9 species in 20 observations was recorded. The team spent 78 hours observing the Memusi dam waterhole (179 person hours), counting 413 animals of 11 species over 246  observations.

I know, the above long list of numbers may be difficult to digest, especially for those who haven’t been involved in the activities on the ground. But the overall results speak for themselves: During four expedition weeks 1,682 observations were recorded, each a line completed on a datasheet and transferred into the computer. The teams spent 265 hours on activities making it a field effort of 940.5 hours by person – excluding preparation & travel time. A total number of 9.663 animals were counted.

In addion team 1 set up ten camera traps in different locations throughout Enonskishu and the SD cards were then changed every week. Expeditioners spent many hours sorting a total number of 8,829 photos/videos and picking out predators and nocturnal species such as lion, leopard, hippo, etc.

All in all our efforts look like this:

Also, the inventory species list we started on expedition day one has grown almost every single day including rare sightings such as aardvark, caracal, green mamba, leopard, honey badger and nile crocodile. 106 different bird species were spotted and identified – thank you Rebecca and Peter!

But enough of numbers & figures for now. Rebekah is over the moon with having a huge set of data to analyse and work with. And you will all be informed once the expedition report is published. Speaking for myself, I am still overwhelmed by the beauty and richness of the Mara and Enonkishu conservancy. Thank you to everyone involved in making this project a success. Thank you Albanus for making us feel welcome and comfortable at Mara Training Centre, Musa for sharing your knowledge and working with us, Joseph & Bernard for feeding us well. A special thanks goes to the Enonkishu rangers for keeping us safe and sharing their knowledge. And last but not least, thank you so much teams 1 & 2 for everything you have put into the project and coping with long days, night shifts, pouring rain, flat tyres and watching videos of moving grass for hours. Without you this project would not have happened. I hope you all take some good memories of Africa back home and I hope to see some of you again some day.

You may already have seen Chris Taylor’s blog and stunning photography, as well as Valery Collins’ blog. There’s also a flurry of posts on Rose Palmer’s website and Instagram.

Our “own” photos, courtesy of many of you (thank you), are below. Do not forget to share the rest of yours via the Pictureshare site please!

Best wishes,

Malika