Mara Archive
Cheetah on Car!
Cheetah jumping on cars went YouTube viral this holiday season, and traditional criticisms from wildlife managers was starkly absent. Is this OK? The newest video had nearly a quarter million hits this morning but it is hardly the only one. I stopped counting at 20 separate YouTubes of cheetah on cars, and there are countless [...]
Another Black Day in Kenya
Visitors and citizens alike were horribly killed in Kenya yesterday reflecting a very strained society. As of this morning four tourists are reported dead with several others still in critical condition after a scheduled flight aboard of Mombasa Air Safari LET aircraft from the Maasai Mara to Mombasa crashed on take-off. Forty-eight Kenyans were killed [...]
Hot Migration Topic
Posted by jimheck in Great Migration, Mara, Planning Travel, Politics, Serengeti on July 24, 2012
Is it really such a burning issue: why are the wildebeest so late? I’ve often experienced them crossing from Tanzania to Kenya even later, sometimes not until August. Normally, though, the herds cross the two river border that separates Tanzania from Kenya by mid- to late June, so we’re a month behind. This year it’s [...]
Way South of Scott Pelley
Posted by jimheck in Arts and Culture, Environment, Great Migration, Mara, Serengeti on January 24, 2012
Sixty Minutes rebroadcast of “Into the Wild” Sunday night caused many of us experts serious angst. Basically three wonderfully short thumbnails of things wild in East Africa were riveted with inaccuracy. I’m sure that when a professor of dentistry speeds past a billboard for toothpaste he winces. Nothing wrong really with telling people they need [...]
Heri kufa macho kuliko kufa moyo
Posted by jimheck in Mara, Perceptions of Africa, Safari Lodges on December 12, 2011
Great circus barkers are so accomplished that they spur the tiger through the blazing ring so effortlessly it creates joy from daring. That was Ari Grammaticus. In this case, the cheetah on the roofhatch. Ari Grammaticus died last month. His memorial service is tomorrow in Nairobi. With him goes the personal daredevil thrill that was [...]
To Kill or Not To Ele
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Environment, Mara, Wildlife Management on October 24, 2011
Have you ever heard about that little kitty that was taken far, far away and dropped in a forest but found its way back home? What about an elephant? Last week the Kenya Wildlife Service completed the first of several phases of relocating 200 jumbos as much as 100 miles from where they were picked [...]
Marvel of the Mara
Posted by jimheck in Mara, OnSafari, Planning Travel on September 28, 2011
Twenty-seven lion, five cheetah, a rhino, 4 kills (not take-downs), a serval, two leopard (one with a recent kill) and a hyaena kill of a wildebeest. In three days in the Mara. And lots of vehicles. Is this a zoo? No, of course it isn’t. It is Kenya’s best game park, the Maasai Mara. So [...]
No Drought News is Not
It’s raining in the Mara; it should be: That’s not news. It’s not raining in northern Kenya; it shouldn’t be: That’s news. Go figure. In between truly cataclysmic reports of America’s political constipation last week, many news sources were reporting on the “calamitous” drought in “East Africa.” One concerned consumer emailed me: “My husband and [...]
Widely Wild Wrongly Written Wildebeest Writings
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Great Migration, Mara, Wildlife Management, Wildlife Research on June 3, 2011
Widely circulated reports about a crash in Kenya’s Maasai Mara wildlife are (1) premature, (2) likely false and (3) infuriating. PS (4) I’m fed up with western news sources about Africa. Unless it’s another apocalypse, it isn’t published. Many of you truly concerned wildlife enthusiasts have sent me the link to the bad BBC story [...]
Oh those Scandalous Wildebeest!
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Great Migration, Mara, Serengeti on October 28, 2010
Reports in the media that the great wildebeest migration this year has made a wrong turn and surprised ecologists is absurd. There is nothing anomalous about the migration this year. The East African newspaper reported Monday that “A change in the spectacular wildebeest migration schedule in the great Serengeti-Mara ecosystem has caught ecologists offguard.” Using [...]
The Mara: Tipping or Tentative?
Posted by jimheck in Mara, Politics, Safari Lodges, Wildlife Management on July 9, 2010
A recent study in Kenya has sparked enormous confusion over the long-term future of its wildlife, particularly in the Mara. But a couple things do look certain. Don’t stay outside the reserves and don’t privatize national treasures. I hate reporting a story like this, but it’s been growing in my conscience like mold on the [...]
Magnificent Mara!
John said it was “like a dream” – the best game drive he’d ever had. And he’s had quite a few in several African countries! We spent a full day in the Mara, bucking tradition but also avoiding the rain! There are so many hard myths so difficult to break about safari travel, and one [...]
Wing it to the Mara
Every good safari will have a significant travel day, but we were still able to get in several hours of game viewing in the afternoon. The drive from the Mathews Mountains back to Nairobi, even with the great new Chinese road, would take about twelve hours according to the camp manager. I never contemplated it. [...]
Lions going extinct? Or Maasai?
Posted by jimheck in Animal Attacks, Big Game, Community Based Tourism, Mara, Safari Lodges on May 21, 2010
Richard Leakey’s excellent wildlife consortium, Wildlife Direct, said today that “Kenya’s lions are on the brink of extinction.” Exaggeration or real warning? Probably both. The organization’s warning followed an incident in late April where three lions were poisoned in Lemek, a private wildlife conservancy north of Kenya’s famed Maasai Mara game reserve. Wildlife officials arrested [...]
Mara Muddle
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, Mara on November 25, 2009
If the Mara conservancies don’t get their act together, visitors might be paying $400 in daily fees! One of the world’s most fabulous wild reserve is really a very small area that’s being cut apart into even smaller pieces that are squabbling with one another. In a worst case scenario that I just can’t imagine [...]