Cute Enough to Eat

Warning: This blog post contains images and videos that some readers may find disturbing.

If you read the most recent Serena Cub Update, you already know that Happy Zebra Clan hyenas recently stumped the hyena researchers by disappearing into the tall grass and taking all the little ones with them. Mike and I spent weeks combing over their territory to no avail. On March 17, our favorite hyena cub, Quack, decided to lend us a helping hand. While oohing and ahhing over a honey badger, Mike and I spotted a hyena cub's head bobbing through the tall grass. While following Quack's fluffy little noggin through the sea of grass, we spotted a small herd of elephants throwing a tantrum. We left Quack to go and investigate.

When we got closer to the elephants, we were shocked to see five hyenas hunkered down in the grass at their feet! Little did we know, we had just stumbled across Happy Zebra's new den! The elephants approached to just meters from the hyenas and their cubs, who held their ground. The elephants flapped their ears angrily, trumpeted, and ripped apart one of the bushes covering the den holes. Eventually, the elephants turned their attention elsewhere and left the hyenas unscathed.

We thought it only appropriate to name this den "Angry Ele Den."

An elephant rips branches off of a bush and flings them over its head. The brave and patient hyenas lie in the grass, mere meters away from the angry eles' giant feet.

Over the next two weeks at Angry Ele Den, more and more cubs poured in until the den scene was hopping once again. The "big kids" (Quack, Skeptic, Cosmos), the "itty bitties" (The Kraken, Chupacabra, Caribou Lou, Jungle Juice, and The Show Must Go On), and tiny black cubs (including King Ghidorah and Drogon) were all reunited once more.

On April first, Angry Ele Den was as busy as ever! Lance and Claymore, daughters of the matriarch, babysit the little cuties.

When we showed up to Angry Ele Den on April first, it was a peaceful evening. The sunset was beautiful, a cool breeze was blowing, and the hyenas were all healthy and happy.

In the blink of an eye, that changed.

With no warning, Claymore leapt to her feet and charged into the crowd of tiny cubs, sending them scattering. She locked onto one tiny cub in particular, who giggled and tried to dart into a den hole, but it wasn't fast enough. Before we knew what was happening, Claymore lifted the cub into the air by its neck -- CRACK -- and then dropped it into a patch of grass. Everything went quiet again.

Stunned, we waited for the cub to emerge from behind the grass, but it didn't. We moved in for a closer look, only to find its limp, lifeless body.

Claymore had just killed a cub.

Mere moments after Claymore snaps the neck of a small cub, The Kraken, drags the cub's carcass across the den complex. Chupacabra, Caribou Lou, and Jungle Juice join in the excitement, blatantly ignoring Lance's protests. 

We had previously been warned by graduate student Kevin McCormick that Happy Zebra Clan was known for killing and eating cubs. Claymore, in particular, is a notorious cub killer. "Drunk with power," graduate student Kenna Lehmann jokingly described Claymore's violent behavior. However, infanticide is not a rare occurrence among spotted hyenas. In fact, it may account for a substantial proportion of mortality in cubs up to 3 months of age. Even captive hyenas have been known to kill one another's cubs!

Immediately following Claymore's sudden violent outburst, Lance began to show obvious signs of distress. She ran over, desperately groaning over the cub's limp body. As the cubs dragged the body around the den, treating it like a toy, Lance followed them helplessly. The cubs ignored her and continued to clumsily drag around -- and trip over -- the body, ripping it apart within minutes.

The cubs didn't waste any time devouring their younger denmate.

Within minutes, they tore open the dead cub's abdomen

and set to work slurping out those delicious intestines.

Although this cub had distinct spots, we were unable to identify it. All of the known spotty cubs were accounted for, so Mike and I concluded that this little fellow must have been new to Angry Ele Den. This isn't surprising; a previous study (White, 2005) found that infanticide often occurs within three days of a cub's arrival at the communal den.

So who could this cub have been? Judging by Lance's distress, she was either a very concerned citizen or, we suspect, the mother of the now deceased cub.

Lance is the youngest daughter of Pike (the matriarch), making her the second-highest ranking hyena in Happy Zebra Clan. Claymore, Lance's older sister, is the fifth-highest ranking hyena in the clan. If this really was Lance's cub (which we cannot confirm at this time), that would mean that Claymore knowingly killed her own niece or nephew and broke rank! Is this even possible?

Who would have known the intestines would be such a hit?

Not only is this behavior possible, but it has been observed many times. Infanticide occurs both between and within clans, as well as between close relatives. Full sisters sometimes kill each other's cubs! Equally astonishing, this behavior seems to occur irrespective of rank.

Why would an unprovoked hyena kill a member of its own clan? Clanmates need each other to defend food against lions, defend territory against neighboring clans, and communally rear offspring. This is why aggressions between clanmates are usually gentle and do not result in injury.

Furthermore, why would a hyena kill such a close relative? This excludes her from any inclusive fitness benefits from that cub's success!

The Happy Zebra Cubs didn't bat an eye at the cannibalization of their former playmate.

White (2005) suggested that this counterintuitive behavior can be explained by the Local Resource Competition Hypothesis. In a nutshell, sometimes, it is more advantageous to remove a future competitor than to tolerate them... even if they are a close relative. This has been reported in other species of social carnivore as well!

Claymore carries the cub's half-eaten body as she runs in circles around the den, with Lance hot on her heels.

There are still many questions surrounding this strange incident, but one thing is certain:

Happy Zebra cubs should sleep with one eye open.

As daylight faded, Claymore claimed the now-mangled carcass of her victim.

Although Lance chased her, Claymore refused to surrender her evening snack.

Sources

1) White, P. A. (2005). Maternal rank is not correlated with cub survival in the spotted hyena, 

Crocuta crocuta. Behavioral Ecology, 16(3), 606-613.

2) Hofer, H., & East, M. (1995). Population dynamics, population size, and the commuting system of Serengeti spotted hyenas. Serengeti II: dynamics, management, and conservation of an ecosystem, 2, 332.

3) Holekamp, K. E., & Smale, L. (1998). Behavioral development in the spotted hyena. Bioscience, 48(12), 997-1005.

Urban hyena activities

Time for another urban hyena update! This week the hyenas of Mekelle, Ethiopia test hunted a domestic donkey. One of the recurring themes that we've heard while traveling around Ethiopia is that hyenas are widely tolerated due to the fact that they don't attack people or livestock. Meat scraps and readily available all around the city and sick, weak, or injured livestock are often abandoned to the hyenas leaving them no reason to bother with humans and healthy livestock. This donkey appeared to be lost, he came trotting down the road and several hyenas immediately took interest and went running after him. We found them a little bit down the road but the scene was not the lively carcass session we expected. Instead the donkey was holding his ground and chased off the few hyenas that dared approach. The hyenas eventually fell asleep about 50 meters away or left to find something more interesting. It appears that healthy livestock really have nothing to fear. Eventually some people walking down the road took the donkey away.

The urban hyenas really don't seem to be wanting for food either. This is Badger, and yes, she always looks this fat. 

When we first arrived in Mekelle, the hyenas were really skittish of our vehicle. Recently, some subadults have started investigating us! 

Ibis, an adult female, looked up at the sky as a jet was passing over. I've never seen hyenas react to planes before! 

Lastly, here's a cute video a three subadults all startling and moving in unison. This was from a month ago when the hyenas were still getting used to the multi-access box. 

Urban Hyena Update

Hello everyone, I'm Lily, a graduate student studying cognition in urban hyenas in Mekelle, Ethiopia. Here's an update on what's going on in Mekelle! 

We finally got to see Rake in the daylight. Usually we set up just around dusk when it's still light out and then as it gets dark hyenas start to trickle through. We set up on a "hyena highway" between their denning sites just outside the city and the sites inside and around the city where they forage. You can hear a lot of human activity on the road; the hyenas appear quite used to this. 

Some surprise visitors! These porcupines just waltzed into this trial like they owned they owned the place. The hyenas didn't seem afraid, but they definitely respected their space!

 

Another visitor: the African Golden Wolf. Originally thought to be the same species as the Golden Jackal which lives in Asia, scientists discovered that these "jackals" are actually more closely related to wolves. 

Meet Elmo: a young subadult that is pretty fond of the box. Notice the three adults who are keeping at a "safe" distance. 

Unfortunately this is Elmo's favorite thing to do when he's near the multi-access box. Luckily he's really adorable so we don't mind watching him! 

Finally: English opens the multi-access box using the drawer! This is the first urban hyena to solve the box and he's opened the drawer twice now. Unfortunately for us, English appears to be extremely low ranking. We've seen him several times, but he only approaches the box when there are no other hyenas around. We're keeping our fingers crossed that he'll come back and open it a few more times! 

Cubdate: The Second Wave

The fall cub boom certainly shook up life at Serena Camp. Mike and I never knew what to expect when we rolled up to the dens. Some days, we'd see brand new cubs emerge from the den for the first time, clumsily staggering about on their stubby legs and squinting against the sunlight. Other days, we'd find ourselves in a whirlwind of romping and rolling cubs -- a whirlwind that usually found its way under our car to chew out the cables to our headlights and turn signals. Occasionally, we would be the only ones at the den; the hyenas had relocated and we missed the memo.

Anubis was so kind as to donate some of her saliva to the hyena lab

using Tracy Montgomery's saliva stick. To say "thank you," I gave her

a nice pile of milk powder. I should have known that you can't give milk

powder to one South Clan cub without giving it to all of them!

In our six months in the Masai Mara, Mike and I have watched dozens of cubs transform from clumsy fuzzballs to semi-graceful young hyenas. Many of our fluffers recently began graduating from the communal den, taking their first clumsy steps into sub-adulthood. As exciting as this was, it left Mike and I with empty nest den syndrome. However, it wasn't long before the second wave of the cub boom hit! We now have 21 new cubs to welcome to life in the Masai Mara.

North Clan

To say that Petra and Ho Ho were fashionably late to the social scene would be an understatement. Months ago, LCS went MIA and was presumed to be dead. Last week, not only did LCS rise from the dead to make an appearance at the den, but she had a four-month-old cub (Petra) with her!

Plenty of magicians have vanishing acts, but it takes mad skill to reappear -- especially with a four-month-old kid!
(LCS and her brand new kiddo, Petra)

RAMA, on the other hand, has been a regular fixture at the den scene for some weeks now, so we wouldn't have been surprised if we saw her suckling a little black cub. What we didn't expect was to see her suckling a five-month-old cub (Ho Ho)! LCS, RAMA, where were you hiding these little critters?

Seeing a five-month-old mystery cub at the den feels a bit like stepping into the twilight zone.
(RAMA and her newest kid, Ho Ho)

When Petra (PTRA) and Ho Ho (HOHO) finally decided to join the rest of the clan at the communal den, the den scene was already hopping. Beluga, Diva, and Deja were off exploring the territory, but Garfield and Krazy Kat already had a new cohort of cubs to keep them company:

Mom          Cub
RMON      Discovery Channel (DISC)
RMON      Syfy (SYFY)
WAFL       Hershey's (HRSH)
WAFL       Smucker's (SMCK)
TREX        Life Finds A Way (LIFE)
TREX        Hold Onto Your Butts (BUTS)
TEDY        Niko Tinbergen (NIKO)
SAU          Arctodus (ARCT)
SAU          Black Bear (BLCK)

Cub versus stalk of grass: who will win?
This intense battle raged on for nearly twenty minutes before this cub emerged, the victor.

With thirteen cubs clambering around the den in an excited frenzy, North Clan takes the cake for "Most Happening Den Scene."

Ho Ho, Petra, and two little black cubs romp and stomp all over Ferguson Farms.

Ferg tries and fails to suppress his inner cub.

Happy Zebra Clan

MUON has earned quite the reputation around Serena Camp. It started with her awkward social behavior and peaked when she started spending her evenings underground in the den, earning the title "Subterranean Mole Queen." Of course, when she brought her cub above ground to join the other hyenas, we just had to call him a goon.

Mom          Cub

MUON      The Show Must Go On (GOON)

EREM       King Ghidhora (KING)

EREM       Drogon (DRGN)
TULA        Andromeda the Chained Maiden (DROM)
TULA        Perseus the Hero (PRSS)
CSBY        Solitaire (SOLI)
CSBY        Egyptian Rat Screw (ERS)

TULA's cubs are the youngest at the den, but arguably the boldest. When they were just learning to use their legs, they were already stumbling ten meters away from the den (very brave for such little cubs!) to join in all the hyena games.

Little DROM or PRSS stumbles out into the light of day, but is still too little to walk in a straight line!

The recent rains have covered Happy Zebra in a sea of tall grass, and the hyenas have seized the opportunity to ditch us. Stay tuned as we try to locate the new Happy Zebra den!

Can you spot Grace O'Malley?

South Clan

Not long ago, Portcullis Den was a whirlwind of happy, fluffy cubs, but it has since been abandoned. We suspect that some of the cubs have moved to a den in a dense thicket on a rocky hill. The rest are out exploring their territory and learning what it takes to be a hyena. We're always proud to see our brave little fluffers grow up and brave the Mara, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little sad to see them leave the den.

Thankfully, South Clan has a handful of precious new little cubbers!

Mom          Cub
WHIZ        Prodigy (PRDG)
WHIZ        Mastermind (MSTM)
BBAN       Lamborghini (LMBO)
BBAN       Ferrari (FRRI)
PALA        Sam I Am (SAMI)

Mastermind latches onto BBAN's neck in a desperate attempt to get his mom's attention. Meanwhile, Prodigy uses her mom as a jungle gym. Their names fit them well: Prodigy is growing big and strong, being the little cub prodigy that she is, while the brilliant Mastermind is projected to be the first new cub to master the saliva stick!

"When you can't nurse in preferred position, make your own preferred position."
-Life advice from Lamborghini and Ferrari

Sam I Am crawls out of the den for the first time! (SAMI is only four weeks old in these photos.) In their excitement, Lamborghini and Ferrari started to play a little rough with Sam I Am. PALA  rushes over to intervene, carrying Sam I Am to the den and placing him safely inside. She then sat guard outside of the den, keeping a watchful eye over her precious little cub.

Although we have 21 clumsy new little cubs to gush over, our big kids will always have a special place in our hearts.

Although the dens are full of new little cubbers, we haven't forgotten about our big fluffers.
American Pharoah would like to remind everyone that he is still cute and quite entertaining.
To demonstrate his point, he goes crazy over a big puddle while the adults are busy eating.

In Loving Memory: The InDAMAtable Spirit ♥

For me, Lee Adama's sweet little face has been one of the highlights of Kenya.

As we welcome new cubs to life in the Masai Mara, we lose others. Lee Adama (DAMA) was my favorite cub right away. He was exceptionally fearless. When the hyenas heard a loud noise, everyone (cubs and adults alike) would scatter, leaving the den scene empty... except for DAMA, that is, who never even flinched. When he stood on his hind legs to chew on the tires of the car, I would try to shoo him away, only to get some classic hyena side-eye before he ignored me and continued chewing. One day, he stood on his hind legs and put his paws on my car door, hopping up and down trying to reach me to play. He truly had an indomitable spirit, and I couldn't wait to see what life had in store for him.

It has been over two months since we last saw DAMA. Every time we radio track his mom, Marten, I hope to see fearless little DAMA lying next to her, nursing, but each time I'm disappointed. We'll never know what happened to DAMA, but it seems unlikely that we'll see this precious little face again. Still, I'm holding out hope.

Whether or not DAMA is still out there, we can be certain of one thing: he made the most of his short life. In the meanwhile, we'll just have to pour all of our attention into getting to know our new cubs!

Python vs. Hyena: A Battle to the Death

Well a bit of a click-bait title there, but I bet you’ll be happy you did indeed click in the end.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen several clashes between giant serpents and unsuspecting mammals over the course of my travels throughout the years.  There was one time I saw a massive anaconda (the heaviest snake species in the world) take down a big male capybara in the Amazon.  Another when a 5m reticulated python (the longest snake species in the world) strangled and consumed a Sulawesi warty pig – which is just a fancy name for a wild boar.  However, I’ve never seen one of these leviathans take down a fellow carnivore until I came to the Mara. 

Bit of a spoiler here, but the rock python emerged as the victor in this clash of titans.  Pythons are constrictors and they slowly squeeze their prey to death after the prey's inevitable need to exhale air from their lungs [I've been corrected in the comments!: constrictor snakes cut off circulation and their prey are quickly rendered unconscious] and then swallow them whole - not one of the greatest ways to go.  All media was generously donated by Jos Bakker and his travel companions. 

After a tip-off from a benevolent group of tourists and their driver, we were informed that a massive 4m rock python had dispatched a hyena and was currently consuming it.  We were originally very skeptical that snake of any magnitude would target large carnivores capable of retaliating and causing significant bodily harm to said snake, like a spotted hyena.  A valuable friend of any scientist is skepticism, but thorough investigation is also a powerful ally.  When anxiously questioned for the location of this predator cataclysm, we were directed to a bridge over a swampy culvert on the border of Happy Zebra and North territories – probably the last place we were hoping this hypothetical event would’ve taken place as now there was an even higher probability that one of our beloved fisi had been dispatched.  Unfortunately, by the time we obtained this intel, it was too late to gallivant around the Mara which had received a true walloping of precipitation that night.  Olivia and I reasoned that a snake with a 68kg hyena bolus in tow would not be making it very far, so we elected to delay our desperate foray until the morning to allow the accumulated water to drain.  Eventually, the rock python was located, resembling, as its namesake implies: a gigantic rock submerged in a swamp.

Here is a video of the end of the strangulation phase and start of the swallowing phase.  You'll see the python first searching for the head, then miraculously pulling all 68kgs of hyena into position, unhinging its mandible, and beginning to swallow the prey head first.  All media was generously donated by Jos Bakker and his travel companions. 

Through cross-references of the video footage above, the discovery of a large rock python at the described location, and the condition of the snake – we concluded that this behemoth rock python did in fact kill and consume an adult spotted hyena.  It took several nerve-racking hours of feverishly searching the binders of our three clans and recently missing hyenas, but we successfully established that this hyena was not one of our own and was likely an immigrant male looking for a new clan.  This individual was likely ambushed and strangled to death as he or she wandered through the swampy culvert or neighboring drainage pipes looking for a cool place to sack out for the afternoon, as hyenas are wont to do.  Nevertheless, it is an incredibly impressive kill for this python.  This snake obviously knew what it was doing as it is one thing to successfully bite an adult hyena, and another to successfully bite, strangle cut off circulation, and come out of the fight unscathed.  One false strike and that hyena could have easily turned around and crushed the python’s skull.  Now that the rock python has successfully swallowed the hyena, it will likely lie motionless in a warm, safe place nearby for a couple of months.  It will digest the hyena in totality and given a kill of this magnitude it will not need to eat for several months after.  Well here’s to another fascinating struggle for life and death in the Mara.  Always remember, if a terrible B-movie appears on the SyFy channel in a couple of years from now titled something like Mega Python vs. Super Hyena...you heard it here first!

Didn't your mother ever teach you to chew with your mouth closed!?  All media was generously donated by Jos Bakker and his travel companions. 

Mekelle's Urban Hyenas

Hello, if you're new to the blog I'm a graduate student studying hyena cognition. I'm currently in Mekelle, Ethiopia to study a population of urban hyenas. Previous blog post: http://msuhyenas.blogspot.com/2017/02/urban-hyenas-in-ethiopia.html

This is the first update on the urban hyenas of Mekelle. Robyn and I have been testing hyenas at two sites on the outskirts of Mekelle. One is near a private high school along a road that the hyenas commute along every evening on their way into the city. The other site is at a landfill where a different group of hyenas forage. So far we've documented over 50 unique individuals by the road. After a few nights at the landfill we dropped it as a study site because they hyenas are busy foraging on their own and weren't very interested in the MAB.

The urban hyenas are completely nocturnal and are also afraid of white light. Therefore, we've been using IR spot lights and IR sensitive camcorders to observe and record them. We have to keep extremely quiet while we're sitting in the car. 

About half the time this is what we observe: 

 

But eventually the MAB tends to get really busy and it gets hard to keep track of everyone. It seems like these hyenas are really gregarious compared to the Mara hyenas, there's very little aggression over the food in the MAB. 

Things were pretty quiet at our Landfill sessions:

Radio, an adorable subadult, feeds from the MAB.

Some excited lope arrivers scare off Radio, a subadult who's fed from the MAB several times.

Koala is a really nervous subadult. Most of the subadults we've seen are fairly bold and many have eaten from inside the MAB but Koala just can't quite bring himself to contact it. 

Grizzly is definitely the gnarliest hyena I have ever seen. She looks like a really tough gal who's been through some crazy stuff. 

Males here are just like males in the Mara.. they'll aggress unprovoked on females when the opportunity arrises! This behavior is called baiting and male hyenas tend to do it more often when female hyenas are receptive which suggest some role in relation to mating. Here Copperhead bites Heron's leg while she's distracted investigating the box. 

See this link for more on baiting: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.10065/abstract

Moose, an adult female, feeds from the MAB.

We nicknamed this guy Squitter-Face during this trial. Eventually I named him Wombat,  but he was easy to spot by his almost non-stop shrill squittering. Squittering is vocalization usually emitted by cubs and subadults towards their mother to elicit her to feed them.

Thermal camera footage from the landfill. I use a thermal camera to observe hyenas who are not within 5m of the MAB. Once they enter 5m we give them a "trial" and start filming them with the IR spotlights and cameras.

Robyn and I have also noticed that these urban hyenas all seem to be quite rotund... apparently they're getting a lot to eat here. 

The Sacred Forest of the Lost Child

Fisi camp has gone mobile everyone.  Olivia and I recently took a vacation from Maasai Mara (as if this is ever something that is needed) and travelled east up to the edge of the Nguruman escarpment until we reached Naimina Enkiyio Forest.  This forest is named after a young Maasai girl who was taking care of her family’s cattle.  As legend has it, some of the calves wandered off into the forest so the girl pursued them to return the vagrants to the herd. The calves returned home without her.  Family members and a host of Moran (the warrior class of Maasai society) entered the forest to search for her, but she was never seen again.  Naimina Enkiyio is an incredibly sacred cultural site to the Maasai, in sight of Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God (an active volcano in Tanzania).   No permanent structures are permitted to be built in the forest, cattle only graze in the forest during droughts when there are no alternatives, and the forest is protected not by law but by the forest Maasai communities who guard its few traversable entrances with great pride.  The communities themselves are some of, if not the most, traditional Maasai societies remaining in Kenya today.  Many rituals and customs long forgotten, are still practiced today as they were hundreds of years ago.  As you can imagine, it is a very special place to many and we felt incredibly honored to be permitted, as complete outsiders, to experience this magical and enchanted forest.

Spider monkeys and gibbons make swinging through canopies a beautiful form of art, almost a graceful dance, the black-and-white guereza on the other hand, dives through the canopy with reckless abandon.  They are incredibly athletic and coordinated however, as they often fully release themselves from branches remaining in freefall for several meters, but almost never missing their mark on the completion of their leap.

In terms of ecology, Naimina Enkiyio is an old-growth cloud forest dominated by cedar and podocarpus trees booming to 40m in height, with the occasional strangler fig thrown in.  The original expanse remains intact and the forest has never been logged in the history of mankind, existing as it has eons ago.  Resting between 2,400-2,800m in elevation, clouds will often work their way down the steep valleys shrouded with swamps, along the steep ravines, and over the sandstone-crested ridges called kiwanjo in kiswahili, while mosses, orchids, and lichens dangle tree branches and carpet rocks throughout the forest.  Water is abundant and can be sipped straight out of the multitude of streams and brooks that crisscross Naimina Enkiyio like a spiderweb.  It goes without saying, this pristine environment supports, not only a wide variety of flora, but fauna as well.  Naimina Enkiyio is teeming with hosts of avian species, including silvery-cheeked hornbill, Hartlaub’s turaco, Narina trogon, African crowned eagle, Ayer’s hawk-eagle, Olive pigeon, white-headed wood hoopoe, tropical boubou, and eastern double-collared sunbird, just to name a few.  Scores of leopards and several prides of lions prowl along the forest floor, hunting cape buffalo and the always abundant bushbuck.  Porcupine, serval cats, and zorilla emerge from their dens as the sun sets.  Our fisi friends are present here too, although they are significantly larger and much shaggier due to the frigid montane climate, with temperatures dipping to 2°C at certain times of the year.  My favorite and perhaps one of the most charismatic animals of the forest are the black-and-white guerezas, a quite stunning species of colobus monkey that inhabits this remote region.  They cause quite a ruckus in the early morning with their daily territorial calls each troop unleashes to demonstrate their size and fitness to neighboring troops.

A young male leopard resting on the edge of a kiwanjo at the onset of dusk.  He had likely never seen a car in his life before, since the primary means of transport in the forest is on foot.  Correspondingly, he was a quite curious feline and couldn’t figure out what to make of this strange animal with four wheels and two luminous orbs in front.

Naimina Enkiyio although spectacular and magnificent in its own right, is only unique due to the surrounding community of Maasai that defend its borders.  This is the real reason for the topic of my blogpost today.  Many conservationists will tell you there are three main pillars of conservation: the flora and fauna themselves, the ecosystems and resources they utilize to subsist, and the financial means required to protect the former two pillars (i.e. fences, ranger salaries, removal of invasive species, etc.).  However, from my personal experience, it is exceedingly difficult to maintain a successful conservation project sans the fourth pillar of conservation: the local peoples.  Often times they have vast, innate knowledge of the surrounding environment they live in, how it has changed overtime, and what strategies could be employed to conserve the environment – whether this be a reversion to traditional practices or implementation of novel ones.  Naimina Enkiyio Forest has persisted, where other pristine environments have faltered at the exploitive hands of humanity, in a large part because of its protective communities. 

Mzei Ole Kuluo (left) and Mzei OlTukai (right) standing on the precipice of Olendipipi, The End of the World, at the conclusion of our day’s trekking.  Not pictured is Libon Parmuat, a doctor of sorts in his community, who also spent the week guiding us around with the Wazee.  The forest has been these three elders’ homes since they were born and their intricate knowledge of it is boundless.

A few years ago, a wonderful couple, who consider Naimina Enkiyio a very special place, recognized this wealth of local knowledge and sought to unify the forest communities to ensure Naimina Enkiyio’s further persistence.  Named after a revered medicinal tree which grows in the forest, the Orkonyil Association was conceived to provide sustainable alternative livelihoods and protect the forest.  The alternative incomes currently being implemented are permaculture, sustainable livestock grazing, and beekeeping.  Pooled income from the Association are used to create infrastructure beneficial to the communities.  For example, electricity has recently been brought to the forest communities through Orkonyil, as well as machinery to create compressed bricks for building houses and water tanks.  Some funds will also be used for anti-poaching and anti-logging operations.  Eventually, once these alternative livelihoods are in place, a small ecotourism outfit run completely through Orkonyil will supplement income to the Association.  Keeping ecotourism as a small portion of the Associations financial portfolio will prevent complete dependence on ecotourism should it falter and proliferation of roads and other tourism structures that would leave the forest vulnerable to general degradation, logging, and poaching.  Naimina Enkiyio is an absolutely amazing and fascinating biome of humanity, wildlife, and environment.  In my opinion, it seems to be in pretty safe hands under the watchful management of the Orkonyil Association.  On behalf of Serena Fisi Camp, I would like to thank all of the forest communities, their leadership, and the creators of the Orkonyil Association for allowing us to enter their secluded and pristine paradise, experience their culture and traditional way of life, providing us with some of the most hosp