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Kenya: Ingenious Ways to Stop Amboseli Jumbo Menace
For ages, marauding elephants of Amboseli have given farmers sleepless nights and scientists have been testing ways of reducing the level of elephant crop damage and the threat to human life in the area. The human wildlife conflict that has persisted for years in Amboseli has left farmers reeling in losses of crops and even lives.

The ecosystem in Amboseli National Park and its small size does not allow for complete fencing off to hold the jumbos inside the park making the already precarious situation complicated.

This allows the elephants to move in and out of the 392 Km2 park and into human settlements, causing a lot of destruction in their wake. Amboseli, Maasai name for place of dust, portrays the delicate nature of the park which is almost dry save for three swamps that are fed by springs from Mt Kilimanjaro.

These three swamps are the lifeline of the Amboseli and attract a host of wildlife to the park.

The Amboseli ecosystem hosts 1,500 elephants, which are famed as the most studied in the world. Researchers have been able to distinguish and name each of these elephants due to their extensive research. Other animals found at the park include thousands of wildebeest, buffalo, zebras and a host of other smaller animals.

Surprisingly, the large numbers of wildlife do not stay inside the park but only go to the swamps to drink water during early morning and evening hours and then head out of the park to the surrounding ranches where they feed and spend most nights. This is when they enter human settlements and destroy maize crops, which are their favourites. In the process they also destroy homes and leave people out in the cold.

Due to the conflict, scientists have been working with farmers to test elephant deterrents and empowering community groups to better cope with elephant crop raiding. According to Ms Kiiru, a researcher at the project, the human wildlife conflict has intensified due to increased agriculture outside the park.

Community ranches that surround the park have been subdivided to make room for agriculture and development of tourism facilities.

An example is the Kimana Tikono Group Ranch, which occupies the area to the East of Amboseli and extends to Loitoktok town.

The vast ranch has been sub-divided into more than 800 pieces and all have their title deeds.

The Kenya Wildlife Services has been helping the communities in the area to begin their own wildlife conservancies and benefit from hosting tourists. The Kimana Tikono Group Ranch has already set aside a 10,000 hectares of land where we have helped them create a conservancy," he said.

In the mid 90s, the problems within the Amboseli ecosystem led to electric fencing in 42 Km2 of irrigated farmlands in Kimana and Namelok ranches to protect about 2000 farmers from elephant raids. Currently, elephant crop damage is concentrated in rain-fed crop fields on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro and in agricultural clusters within wetlands on the lowlands.

In these areas, crop damage by elephants is considered a major cause of depletion of food in the area.

However, the efforts of the scientists are giving much needed hope to the farmers.

Among the deterrents that researchers have come up with to keep away elephants from human settlement areas include oil-chilli-tobacco ropes, fireworks, air pressure horns, and early warning systems such as trip wires and observation towers.

The trip wire early warning system is made of electric and binding wires, bicycle alarm, battery cells, wooden posts and a toggle switch. A bicycle alarm is kept inside the farmer's house or at the crop-guarding site. Once an elephant pushes the binding wire in a bid to enter a crop field it triggers a switch which turns on the alarm.

Another item that has been tested by scientists is Chilli Tobacco ropes, which are tied across elephant trails - since elephants always use defined paths.

"We noted that on close encounter with the ropes elephants retreated and would at times walk along the rope to enter the farmlands at the end.

Farmers who had surrounded their farms with ropes successfully kept elephants out of their farms," said Winnie Kiiru.

The alarm systems are set up at 6.00 pm when elephants are likely to invade the farms and disabled at 6.00 am since elephants rarely invade farms during the day.

Ingenious sound devices like fireworks are also being put to test. The fireworks tested included "rocket type", "candle lit fireworks", and "commando bombs" that are acquired from Tononoka Fireworks, a fireworks dealer in Nairobi. "We train farmers on safe use of the fireworks and each group is given specific fireworks for testing," said Kiiru. The prices of the fireworks used range from Sh30 to Sh100.

"The initial tests were so successful that the farmers stated they did not need to go and cut fire wood for burning flares since they could now easily chase elephants using fireworks," said Kiiru.

In farms where fireworks tests were done, farmers say they stayed for a long time without seeing elephants and now their crops are safe.

Air horns assembled using old refrigerator cylinders and used vehicle horns were also tested. The cylinder was filled with air and using a release nozzle, this was blown towards elephants in the farms to surprise and frighten them once they enter the farm.

Observation towers were also erected at vantage points along elephant trails where farmers could detect approaching elephants. While on the watchtowers, the farmers could send signals to one another using torches to warn of approaching elephants.


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