THE THABAGUNJI INCIDENT

I was transferred to Tsavo East National Park in June 1995 as head of the wildlife protection unit team and by then there were approximately 30 black rhinos in Tsavo East and their free range area stretched from the Triangle which borders Mtito River in Tsavo West, through the Tsavo/Athi junction, to Ashaka and Manyani brush lands to Punda milia near the Luggards waterfall. Many of the rhinos get refuge on the Yatta Plateau ravines and they quench their thirst in the Athi River below the plateau and in the brown waters of the Tsavo River that originate from Mzima Springs located at the foot of the Chyulu hills. There were two security observation posts (op) on the Yatta plateau that overlooked the Rhino range below,  code-named Lima four (L4) and Lima five (L5) and they were permanently manned and remained active throughout the year due to their strategic location and having a full view of the rhino range below them and in the nights they could spot poachers campfires from as far as the manyani fields and Irima hills made by either the Wariangulu or the long bow poachers as they were known,  the wakamba people who called themselves the pot poachers and the wataita tribe who came from the mbololo hills to hunt.  They all used arrows laced with poison from the Acokanthera tree which was readily available from a Giriama sub-tribe found in the coastal region.

The use of firearms in wildlife poaching came into focus in the early 80s when heavily armed Somali gangs also known as the " shifta " entered the arena and this completely changed ranger patrol strategies because, for the first time, fear of being shot on duty was real. There were increased gun fights in the protected areas and the unspoken rule of” He who raised his weapon and pulled the trigger first lived to tell the story" became a reality. Rhino poaching increased tremendously as compared to elephant killings because the rhino horn was light and easily concealed not to mention the fact that it was many times more expensive than the heavy elephant tusk. The Tsavo East Rhino Range and the Mukururu rhino sanctuary which is located on the northern slopes of the Chyulu hills became battlegrounds where many poachers were eliminated but we also lost a sizable number of very brave men.

 

The lands north of the Galana River which included the entire length of the Yatta Plateau, Koito Plains, Galana ranch, and the patrol bases of Sangayaya and Ndiandasa were under the management of Ithumba station which served as the HQ of the northern region complete with a resident warden and a platoon commander who took care of security. Warden George K Wanyonyi who was an assistant warden II was in charge of the Ithumba platoon and he reported to the company commander based at the Tsavo East coy command in Voi. On this fateful day: Sunday 11th of May 2003, officer Wanyonyi spoke with his coy commander during the normal morning briefs and he gave his intentions to conduct a week-long foot patrol along the Yatta plateau from the Cottars camp along the Athi river towards Thabagunji gap with the sole mission of conducting de-snaring operations and to generally dominate the ground. He was set to depart camp at 1500hrs of the same day so he proceeded to brief his team on the mission before retiring to his tent to clean and park his complete equipment fighting order (CEFO) but he was called back to the radio room by the radio operator for an urgent message from the coy commander who informed him of a reported sighting of four men by L4 Op which was one of the observation posts within the rhino range area and he was thus instructed to depart immediately to the said area.

The following narration was given to me by Platoon commander George Wanyonyi who personally led the operation.

 “After receiving my marching orders from the company commander. I immediately assembled my team and gave them the new orders and we departed Ithumba camp at 1000hrs for the mission area. The team comprised me, CPL Abdulahi Lango, Rangers Patrick Karmushu, Stephen Lewagat, and driver Joseph Lekeren.  They were all seasoned rangers who had seen action and conducted plenty of such security operations and this was just another routine patrol for them because it was generally concluded that the sighting was of local Kambas hunting for bush meat. We reached the Thabagunji gap at 1130hrs and disembarked from the vehicle to start combing the area on foot trying to pick the footprints of the four perceived local poachers because the observation post had by that time lost sight of them. This has always been the hardest part of any bush operation because most eyes were on the ground searching for footprints but an experienced team leader always arranges his men in strategic positions on both flanks to guard against possible ambushes while on an extended line formation which is mostly dictated by the terrain and the task at hand. We picked up the footprints and followed them down the gap towards the river below and saw where they tried to cross over to the southern bank but the river was flooded and it was at this juncture that we realized that the footprints were not the normal shoes (Ngiyira) worn by the Kamba poachers and that we were tracking armed poachers who wore tanga shoes which were synonymous with Somali poachers. The dynamics of the search now completely changed and I gave this new finding to the company commander who sent in another section from the Sangayaya platoon which comprised platoon commander  James Kiparus, rangers Aemun Lokwawi, Abdulahi Ali, Kaisi Karuja, Mohamed Sombwana, and driver Twalib Abdulrahaman.

 

When the second team arrived, I briefed them and we quickly agreed to form an extended line with Warden Kiparus and Cpl Lango on the extreme left and myself on the far right with the six rangers tagged between us We began the search from the river upwards towards the top of the plateau. The vegetation became very thick as we ascended the plateau and the line was broken due to rough terrain and deep gorges the patrol scattered to the point where Platoon commander Kiparus found himself with only one ranger by his side while Cpl Lango also ended up with one ranger and the other four rangers ended up with me and by around 1630hrs my team saw four figures on a raised rock above us and we quickly took cover till we established that they were our team members who had somehow met and we communicated via the handheld radios and they informed us that they have picked the footprints and they agreed to wait for us to catch up.

We picked up the footprints of both the bandits and the rangers and followed them for a short while before losing them again on a flat rock. It was 1715 hrs. and getting late and we needed to get back to the vehicles before darkness but I failed to communicate my intentions to Warden Kiparus because the handheld radio battery I was carrying decided to die so I led my team toward the vehicles followed by ranger Sombwana , Aemun , Kaisi and lastly Ali in that order but after a short while I heard ranger Aemun whisper to me suggesting that the bandits might be hiding in a cave that was to our right so I slowed down to talk to him and it was at this instance that ranger Sombwana walked past me and stood on my right side and that was the particular moment when a shoot rang out and ranger Sombwana was hit. We returned fire and after some time the bandits escaped. The team led by Kiparus laid an immediate ambush above our position after hearing the gunfight below and they eventually engaged the bandits when they emerged from the rocks below.

 A KWS chopper which was on stand-by at the rhino camp arrived at the scene minutes after Kiparus team declared a contact wait out on the radio when the shooting started. I sent ranger Aemun who was beside me to rush to the road where he could be seen by the chopper so that they could lead the vehicles into a nearby place for the evacuation of the injured ranger. The rescue teams reached us at around 2200hrs and it was then that I called the coy commander on the radio to brief him and that is when the entire KWS fraternity in Tsavo was relieved when they heard my voice because it was assumed that I was the one who was shot.  Capt. Julius Leperes who was the KWS air wing chief pilot landed at Thabanguji airstrip at 2230hrs in the night to evacuate the injured ranger but he was pronounced dead on arrival at Voi District Hospital. That evening our strength was reinforced by the arrival of Cpl John Ngare, ranger Ltikiye Lemagas, and ranger Jillo Guyo from the rhino base.

 

Early the following day the 12th of May 2003 the operation teams assembled at the Thabanguji airstrip at around 0600hrs where we were addressed by the assistant director in charge of Tsavo East accompanied by our company commander to give us moral support and to encourage us and to inform us of the passing on of ranger Sombwana. we were instructed to revisit and conduct a thorough search of the contact scene. So I once again led the now expanded team of two officers including myself, two CPLs, and six rangers and we searched the bandit's hideout and recovered 182 live rounds of 5.56 used in the m16 rifle, an axe, and other items, we then extended the search to the second contact scene and again we agreed to comb the area using the extended formation with Kiparus at the extreme left with myself on the right with and the two corporals John Ngare and Abdulahi Lango in between the rangers. we planned to comb the area from the top of the plateau to the valley below and we completed the first sweep to the valley without any incident but on the way up the team got separated again and the one led by Kiparus decided to search their last evening contact scene where they recovered a G3 rifle with an empty magazine and the also discovered a corpse. 

I ended up being alone with Cpl Ngare and while we were hopping from rock to rock I was held back by instinct I took cover behind an acacia tree to scan the grounds and I picked up some unusual background of something orange some 25 meters to the left of my position and when I observed keenly I saw a firearm covered by orange threads on the hand guard. The holder of the firearm was not visible because he was in shadows so I fired two warning shots and when I saw him raise the gun and aim at me I shouted to Cpl Ngare to start firing as well. The bandit fired only one shot at me and hit the Acacia tree that I was using as cover a few inches from my head and this forced me to roll away from the exposed position on the rock and fall to a distance of 7 ft. below. I made contact with the other team to inform them of the shooting and to also confirm their position before calling the coy commander who was covering the operation on a chopper to assist us in leading the second team to our position but two of the rangers were left behind to guard the dead bandit and his rifle.

While waiting for the second team, we discussed options on how best we could approach the bandit position which we shared with the team when they arrived but when we started moving to the agreed location I noticed that Cpl Ngare was not with us and we sent ranger Karmushu to go back and fetch him and he found him going up the same rock where I climbed earlier when the bandit shot at me. The ranger tried to stop him but he insisted that he needed to show the other team the location of the bandit. Cpl Ngare was still bending and talking to ranger Karmushu below him when the bandit shot at him and missed him twice but the third shot went through his right eye and exited through the left ear killing him instantly. We all could see Cpl Ngare’s body above us on the rock but could not approach because the bandit was in a concealed position where he could see our movements so I went on the radio to report the fatality and to request the coy commander to contact the GSU in Galana ranch to reinforce us with heavy artillery that included grenades and anti-personnel mortars that would smoke out the bandit from his hideout.

The GSU (general service unit) arrived three hours later and we briefed them on the situation and while they were discussing the execution of their plan I crept to within range of the body of Cpl Ngare and using I tree branch I managed to retrieve his weapon and after some struggle, we also managed to pull down his body from the rock. The bandit must have been watching our every move because when we retrieved the body he started shouting in broken Swahili with words that sounded like; ": woria serkali amani, amani". This gave us his exact position and the GSU attacked with both hand grenades and anti-personnel mortars till all foliage and tree branches that were covering the cave entrance were cleared before machine gun fire was directed into the cave. When the shooting stopped we all rushed to the position and there we found the mutilated body of one person and an M16 rifle. 

The operation was called off that evening after de-brief and when all was counted for, Cpl Ngare’s body was transported to the Voi morgue. A week later a team returned to the cave for a search and they recovered 40 more rounds of live ammunition.  

The bullet that felled Ranger Sombwana was aimed at me and I only missed it because I slowed down to hear what Ranger Aemun was saying. The second bullet that was also sent my way on the second day hit the acacia tree that I was using as cover. Fate, also known as KARMA was on my side during those two unforgettable days of May 2003, but I lost two gallant comrades and one of them suffered for hours with only me for comfort while we waited for the rescue team to reach us. Cpl John Ngare died on the same rock where I was shot that same day when I took cover behind the acacia tree, because of his courage and desire to silence the bandit who killed Ranger Sombwana the previous day.”

 Rangers face very tricky and dangerous situations every day during the course of their duties in and out of protected areas and many have lost their lives while others are maimed for life. The wildlife that we swore to protect is in danger of extinction and it's our duty and mandate to make sure of their safety. Free-range rhinos in Tsavo East were almost wiped out but they are now thriving in sanctuaries with round-the-clock protection by a dedicated ranger force whose morale and trust towards their goals is never in question. 

 This is a true story given to the rest of us who were not in Tsavo during those active years when poaching was almost declared a national disaster,  by a person who might have lost his life during this operation, and who saw two of his men felled by poachers. Senior Warden George K. Wanyonyi is currently in charge of our central armory while James Kiparus is a Warden 11 based at Shimba Hills National Park. 

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 [RO1]

Sarara massacre November 1993

Sarara massacre November 1993:

Our organization (KWS) had acquired it's first GPS gadgets, and all Company Commanders were  sent to Manyani Field Training School to learn how to use them. We were there for one full week and at the end of the course each one of us was given one of the gadgets to take home for practice. We left the school in high spirits thinking that the implement would help us end poaching ASAP . I took a bus to Nairobi and went to one of our preferred joints in Ongata Rongai in the Kajiado District for the night, but I had to called our operation room (OCH) to let them know my location in case of emergency. At some minutes to 1500hrs, a vehicle was sent from the HQ to pick me up and I was directed to report to the staff officer operation ( SOOOPS) for briefing , and he informed me that there were reports from Samburu that elephants might have been poached in the Sarara area near Wamba town in Samburu west.

I did not go to Manyani training school with my official transport , so i used public transport to Meru town and I reached there late and went straight to bed in one of the local hotels. The Opps room had earlier contacted the warden Meru station to book me a room , and he was also instructed to provide a vehicle to pick and drop me at Lewa Downs conservancy where one of our patrol planes was to pick me early the next morning. The service was very efficient , and everything went as planned and by fast light we were airborne towards the Mathews ranges where we had more than 3000 Elephants roaming freely among the community and they were always in threat of being poached by armed poachers from Isiolo and Marsabit  who would then transport the tusks through Moyale into Ethiopia .

 In those early years, the local population was not involved in the actual killing of elephants , but they would innocently give out information on elephant  and rhino movements to armed Somali poachers. Two Somali families in Baragoi were suspected poachers and we visited them once, and I believe that they took us seriously but another family in Wamba was also suspected , but again they were small timers and they required little persuasion , and fear did the rest.

Sarara, is the current Namunyak conservancy , and it occupies all that prime game country from Lerata to Ndonyio Wasin, which is on the boarder of Marsabit and Samburu districts. It has fairly good rainfall , plenty of rugged hills which include Ndikiro eelkimaniki, lejas, kumomoyog, soito naarok to mention just a few . This is the elephant country, and you could find hundreds of them moving together in great noisy herds, grazing and flattening every bush on their path. There were hundreds of mud pools in the open bush land and water was in every lugga. Yes , this was haven for the mighty kings, but we also knew that the hills could hide too many secrets, and of interest was a Somali family that had just settled  in Sere olipi center thus our antennas were always aimed at them. They were a real threat, and we knew it , but they were Kenyans and had a right to live anywhere.

The out post in Kitich camp which was on top of the Mathews had reported having received information from the locals that gun shoots were heard in Sarara , and had requested that a patrol plane be sent there to verify the info, but the Meru plane was in Wilson for a hundred hour check and would not be available for the next two days , so Meru park management adviced the officer in Kitich to send in home guards to see what might have been killed , and it was this team who saw and reported that six elephants have been killed in the area and a patrol section from the Samburu Complex was sent in through Sabashi hill to verify the information and this is the team we found close to the carcasses when we flew in . We spoke to them via the aircraft radio on the direct channels for they were on VHF, thus transmission was limited due to surrounding hills. It was the first time for me to see so many elephants killed in one place, and it was really a very sorry state.

 We discovered two more carcasses eight miles away and that is when I knew that there must be more so i called Meru park on the radio and instructed them to send in another section and that my official transport was to pick me up in Wamba that same day because that was were we had an airstrip. I could not miss in on this one.

The pilot dropped me in Wamba air strip and proceeded to Kina for refueling and i latter met the second team at Ndikiro eelkimaniki pass where we followed the only road in to the killing fields. The road was build by the kenya army while escorting the herds that belonged to the then army commander; Major General Lengess and it was named after him. We drove to a dam between the hills and camped there for the night due to heavy rain and the night was very cold yet we could not light a fire to make tea for fear of being seen. The place became flooded and we feared that we could be swept by the water flowing down towards us from the hills on three fronts. The rains must have stopped in the wee hours of the morning, and we could not sleep but cradled in our seats in the land cruisers.  We knew we could not make tea in the morning, so we sent two teams of three rangers each to climb the hills, first to try and make contact with the other team, and also to scout the area. They Failed to  make contact with the team, but we met the locals and they gave us crucial information concerning the poachers.

We were led to another carcass by the locals, and they told us that there were four armed men of Somali origin and that only one of them spoke Kiswahili and the rest of the poachers were reported to be always quite and avoided contact with the local people.  We finally met the other section latter that evening and we made camp at the start of the Suyan lugga where we compared notes and came to conclusion that the killing of all the carcasses we saw were three days old and were executed by marks men, for they all had head wounds and they only killed big mature elephants .

We tuned our Racal HF radio and sent our situation reports to the operations room in Langata, and retired for our first sleep in two days.  I was lucky to escape with my life the next morning when we walked in to a herd of about twenty elephants in the early hours. 

   They must have stopped for a rest and were asleep when we walked right through their midst in the dark without noticing, and they were only trying to run away from us. We were four and we were lucky ,  there was a small hill to our right, and we scrambled up the hill in company of some young elephant bulls who might have wondered why we were running alongside them but they all stopped running as from a signal, stared at us and run back down the hill to probably tell their kin how stupid and scared the human beings were.  My team was lucky, but another team was forced into a galley by three menacing bulls who actually chased them and they could see their trunks hanging in the trench trying to reach them but lucky for them, the trenches were very deep. One of the rangers had a thorn go straight in to his knee and we had to evacuate him to Wamba for treatment.

We discovered three more carcasses in two different places to bring the total to eleven dead elephants, and we followed foot prints of a lone person to Wamba town were he must have gone to call up transport and we latter established from the local morrans that they had seen the Swahili speaking poacher use that trail to Wamba. 

Findings:

• We established that the poachers took the tusks and vacated the area on the day the first patrol team reached the six carcasses. 
• That  the vehicle had dropped the poachers near the Sabashi hill , then went to Wamba to wait. 
• We also learned that due to the high number of elephants in the area, the poachers were selective and only targeted the big tusks.
• We knew that they had a contact in Wamba,  and  we broke that connection latter.
• The tusks went through Marsabit and the guys paid their way through two road blocks.
• We managed to get the names of two of the gang members and both were later neutralized in the Nkuronit area while on a mission to poach the only remaining rhino at Kenno area then.

It is important to mention that there are now two local community conservancies in this area and they have greatly helped in conserving wildlife . These are Namunyak and the Kalama conservancies.   

        Dr Richard Leakey was not amused and he made us promise that we would not loose that number of elephants again, and that we should silence a gang soon and offer him their heads for Christmas.  

This particular promise was honored on the 23.December.1993 when we eliminated the Isiolo - Marsabit high way gang at the rock the locals call Naipaipai. 

George Osuri was the platoon commander in charge of Meru , Michael Lenaimado was in Kitich and Dr. Francis Lesilau was in charge of the Isiolo/ Samburu complex.

DAVID SHELDRICK AND TSAVO

 PART TWO.....

The park was becoming a safe haven for the elephants and many more were flocking in from the outlying areas outside the park where human population was ever expanding and this huge numbers were causing havoc to the vegetation and the park was slowly being turned into a desert. Talk about the elephant numbers was rife in Nairobi and the press was picking up this call and this really worried the park management because many wanted the country to go the South Africa way where they culled their elephants annually in order to keep the population at a fixed level.  The National parks service wanted to know the true elephant numbers in Tsavo and they requested the government to assist and the British Army volunteered to count the elephants while they conducted normal exercises in the park which led to the first ever elephant  census in Kenya in 1966. The park was divided in to blocks where each was to be counted in a day and adjoining blocks were simultaneously counted to avoid duplication. The army did the census in precision and all the data was plotted on block maps at the end of each day. “ operation count “ as it was code named was a success and 9000 elephants were counted in the park and more than 15000 were seen at the dispersal areas around the park. 

An American company called the Ford Foundation gave a financial grant to the then Kenya Government to support elephant research in Tsavo and a Dr. Richard Maitland Laws , assisted by the infamous Ian Parker were brought in to lead the research and once in Tsavo the team settled in very fast and they insisted on getting data from dead elephants to assist them in assessing population dynamics in relation to vegetation, and they requested that 300 elephants be culled. The Koito area which is north of the galana river and nesting at the tail end of the yatta plateau was chosen as the killing ground and the execution was so precise where whole family units were rounded up by helicopters and they all ended up laying on top of each other.  Dr. Laws collected the specimens but after a while he reported that he needed more samples of the dead elephants from a different population for comparative reasons.

 It is important to note that Dr. Laws and Ian Parker had already culled many elephants at the Muchison Falls National Park in Uganda and Tanzania was also in the process of inviting them for a similar excursion at the Mkomazi National Park. Culling was a very lucrative undertaking for the person who won the tender ended up selling the meat, skins, feet and tusks for profit and it was an open secret that Ian Parker actually bought a plane from this proceeds. David Sheldrick refused to give in to the second slaughter and after they were both called to Nairobi the National Parks service sided with him and Laws was forced to leave Tsavo.

David sheldrick when on to setup the Tsavo research committee under Dr. Glover and Dr. Walter Lenthold and it is this team who helped collect the now eroded jaw bones at the current Tsavo research. In the early 1970 a serious drought hit Tsavo and elephants died in their thousands which was David Sheldricks argument that nature had its own ways of controlling populations. The only herds that survived that drought were the once who were led by a strong matriarch who understood the comings and changes in seasons and led their families to other places to shield them from the looming disaster. This survivors returned to Tsavo after the rains and multiplied to the current great numbers and it is the genes and resilience of those strong matriarchs that we now have the great majestic tuskers of the Tsavo.

The Aruba dam was built in the 60s by David to provide water for the elephants and the rhinos who swarmed the southern sector of the park , for Voi river was the only source of water for the wildlife during the dry spell with elephants digging holes out of the sandy kanderi swamp and on the sandy stretch’s of the Voi river, but rhinos with their clumsy long pointed horns did not have the luxury to drink from the elephant water holes, so the park management decided to dig the Aruba dam. It took several months because everything was done by hand but it eventually became the most referred and popular site mostly by tourists who enjoyed seeing the majestic herds of elephants and hundreds of the snorting black rhinos not to mention the thousands of plain game who thronged the dika plains all the way to Dakota and west towards maungu. The Aruba lake became the center of life for Tsavo and this prompted the management to erect few self catering bungalows near the dam which became instant hits . They also started a small shop selling canned food and soft drinks, and a petrol station.

Tilapia fish was also introduced into the dam and this brought in some much needed revenue and a source of protein for the rangers. David Sheldrick went on to build a causeway striding the gallana river near laggards falls to assist his field force to access the northern corridor during the rainy season and this super bridge has stood the sands of time and is still used to date though a new overhanging bridge was built south of the falls. Peter Jenkins was an assistant warden under David and he was eventually moved to establish the Meru National Park and Bill Woodley shifted to the northern part of Tsavo east and settled near the ithumba hill. 

This were the pioneers of wildlife conservation in our country and it is worth remembering them because it is through their efforts and determination that wildlife thrives today. David Sheldrick was formally known as “ Bwana sana nane “ by the local communities because he had a reputation of only stopping working at 1400 hours every day to break for lunch , and he build Tsavo from scratch. He gave his whole life and that of his family to conservation and his orphaned elephant project that he started in his own house in Tsavo with his wife ( Daphne ) in the 60s is still living on and is managed by Davids  daughter called Angela.  

My 13 years in Tsavo are memories that I will cherish for ever , for they helped shape my conservation years and my career. In 1989 I` learned to fly courtesy of Daphne Sheldrick and most of my youthful energies and growing up happened within the confines of Taru desert. I have tried to ape the founder of Tsavo himself but I confess that in many instances I dropped off before I started , sometimes not because of my wants but because the system dictates otherwise. I was the longest serving security officer in Tsavo in the late 90s and my close to five years as the Assistant Director there gave me a memorable experience. I know that my tour of Tsavo has ended now that i fume around my retirement years , but I must confess that I will for ever hold the place at the deepest and most secure part of my heart.

THE MARVELS OF MERU NATIONAL PARK

Meru National Park had an area of 870 sq kms and less than a thousand elephants within its boundaries but Meru park was special. It was my second park after Mt Elgon  and security issues between them were never the same. Elgon was a forest park while Meru had both open savanna and thick thorny bushes south of the park which were intolerable even to wildlife such that the only animals I remember seeing in there were Dikdik, the lesser kudu and some very poisonous snakes. 
The park had one major blessing in that it had more than eight rivers traversing its entire boundaries.They streamed down from the Nyambene hills that rise tall on the western side of the park and completely block the magnificent view of the mountain God, known to the Kikuyu , the Ameru and the Embu as "Kirinyaga" and "oldonyio keri "to the Maa tribes .  The Ngaya forest was small but we patrolled it often because it was frequented by a small group of elephants.

The rivers that I remember include Rojeweru, Mutundu, Kibangwa, Murera, Bisanadi, Kiolu, Punguru and Bwatherongi.  The Jilodima and the Gollo plains were full of life during the rains and sometimes the grass was so tall that we could stalk game better than the marauding cats that roamed the park in big prides. 
I have once had the urge to walk up to one of this lions just to confirm if they might be the descendants of Mr Adamson , the famous lion keeper of Kora , but I never brought out the idea for fear that my rangers would nail and force me into the challenge . 
we had so much of those escapades and I remember one time when I was almost made to snatch a cobra by its tail, but a sensible NCO sensed my willingness and shot the serpent before I proved my manhood to my piers. I had a terrible dream that night and I swore never to be lured into such heroism again. 

We were boys then and we always ended up breaking every promise and all oaths that we bestowed on our poor selves.We always knew that the Gods understood our actions and that they would almost all the time forgive us and our trespasses.

The Dakadima outcrop was also called the Rapsu rock and was near the Jillodima plains where hundreds of elephants came together for meetings and ceremonies only known to them every time it rained. Such gatherings have always invited armed gangs from the neighboring Garisa District, so our chores were always cut out for us . Placing an OP ( observation post ) on the rock was routine and a rear base close by to react to reports and sightings. We had plenty of contacts with poachers such that our platoon base in Korbessa was referred to as Bosnia . 

The Bisanadi river was a major hazard those days, it served as the eastern boundary of the park and a common watering point for the noisy Somali goats and their smelly camels. There were two crossing points used by the Somali poachers to enter the park, Machet and Gutishi, and our ambushes were always successful at this points. Malkarupia was the junction where Bisanadi river met the mighty Tana River and this was one of our preferred spots where we used as a listening post and a repeat business ambush zone.

There were times when things went quite in the park and we were forced to go out to look for mischief. We could choose between visiting the Kubiramata hills which would then lead us to Danyier village and to Scott market,  or we could walk the Mohamed Fujo cut line where we would end up in Garbatula to sample it's  hidden treasures. Kinna town was our preferred hub. There was only one telephone booth in the town serving the whole community and we were always given preference and the priority to use it over everybody else. We were the law and the Borana community of Kinna recognized our potential. We protected them from cattle rustlers and from their ancestral enemies ; the Somali gun men of Mbalambala. 

One day, one of our patrols saw foot prints of a big group of people outside the park who were heading towards Kinna town. We were not sure if they were of the local Borana community who also patrol their grazing area or they were from the Somali group who normally attack to rob shops or to steal livestock . 
The team radioed the base and an officer ( Platoon commander George Osuri ) was sent to Kinna to inquire if their men were out on patrol but while they were still talking to the village head men , bullets started flying every where, the village people responded quickly and the attack was repulsed very fast. By this time I had taken off on our spotter plane where we saw the whole episode as it was unfolding below. We could not do much but to report the fighting fast hand to all who were tuned into channel 5 on our VHF radio.  We latter saved the local youths from walking into an ambush laid on their path by the withdrawing attackers. This act and many others brought us in KWS very close to the Kinna people. 

Meru National Park remained as one of the high risk parks in the history of the Kenya National Parks until when the Government got a grant from the AFD ( the French Government ) which was used to rope in all the communities around the park and poaching was completely eradicated in and out of the Meru ecosystem . The communities benefited from taking care of wildlife and the park reclaimed its glory as being one of the most natural parks in the country. 

I am happy that we did our bit during the mucky years and I will always look back and reflect the good, the bad and the ugly incidents we went through to secure and protect the great places and species on earth for humanity. Having worked in Meru for six months, I was transferred south to Lamu to head the company in April 1994.

DAVID SHELDRICK AND TSAVO

Major David Shieldrick was the youngest company commander who served within the Kings African Rifles during the Second World War. He came to Kenya after active service in Abyssinia and Burma and joined one of the first professional hunting safari operation firm to be established in Nairobi. He was married with two young kids but he latter divorced his first wife and married Daphne. He was a leader with sound knowledge on natural history and African wildlife and he was given a job as a warden by the then colonial government, and sent to transform the unforgiving scrub lands of Taru desert at the southern regions of the country into a viable National Park.

Tsavo was devoid of permanent settlements because it was inhospitable , remote , untouched , very wild , and it was entirely covered in an entanglement of dense scrub vegetation , too arid for cultivation and livestock because it was also invested with tsetse fly. Tsavo had thousands of elephants and an equal number of black rhinos and plenty of plain game and it was believed to be where the northern and southern forms of fauna met . David Sheldrick and team hacked and carved out roads out of their Ndololo base camp on the Voi river and they had also to think of preserving the natural habitats where the wildlife thrives by cataloging the appalling loss of wildlife they uncovered in the bush during their patrols caused by ruthless band of local poachers.

In the mid 50s over 1200 elephants and hundreds of black rhinos were being killed every year in Tsavo and this took toll on the park wildlife but the few park rangers were reluctant to confront poachers who were armed with deadly poisoned arrows and they were also unwilling to arrest members of their own tribes for fear of witchcraft and reprisals , which prompted the management to request Nairobi to give them the right tools and equipment to help them cope with the crisis. Poaching was mainly done by the Wariangulu people who were also called “ the long bow tribe” who were professional elephant poachers , and the Kamba tribe also came into the park from the north and they were not as experienced as the wariangulu but they were proficient killers and they hunted in big groups.

 The two tribes seldom trespassed on each other’s hunting grounds, mutually observing unwritten laws enforced by the threat of reprisal through witchcraft , and poison was used by both tribes which was sold to them by the Giriama tribe. The poison was deadly and active as soon as it entered the blood stream and it could kill an elephant within a couple of hours and humans within minutes , disrupting muscular rhythm of the arteries thus affecting the heart. They normally tested it on frogs and lizards for potency before sale, where they used a thorn dipped in poison to jab it, and in absence of a live specimen the seller would prick his arm and would place little poison on the blood path as it flowed and would see how first it turned dark. Poison making is still a highly specialized profession and a closely guarded secret among the giriama people and it is still a very lucrative business and there is no known antipode to the acokanthera three arrow poison made by the Coastal region tribe,  and dying is cruel and agonizing mostly if the poison is fresh.

David sheldrick was eventually given the nod to recruit rangers and he sent his assistant Bill Woodley to the north to recruit from the fearless tribes of the Turkana, Samburu, Somali and Oroma who were skilled in bushcraft and after months of training they formed the first field force and they were sent into the bush to confront poachers and this became an example of an extreme effective anti poaching unit that would prove to be the blue print for all the other national parks in East Africa. The most remarkable poachers of the 1960s included Galgalo Kafonde from the Wariangulu tribe and Wambua Makula from the Kamba nation. Galgalo was once arrested by the field units after a tip off but later managed to escape from custody but he surrendered after many years when guns entered the poaching cycle,  but Wambua was arrested and he turned to be a vital informant who assisted in apprehending many poaching gangs in Tsavo.

David sheldricks efforts in combating poaching were eventually recognized and a Mr. Noel Simon who was the executive head of the newly established East African Wildlife Society lobbied the government to assist Tsavo and the then governor of Kenya , Sir Evelyn Baring gave the campaign to employ more rangers a nod and he also issued a directive to all magistrates to issue deterrent sentences to those found guilty of offenses related to wildlife and mostly the dealers. This was very welcoming news to the Tsavo team because they received two additional anti poaching units from the Game Department and one was stationed at Makindu and the other was stationed at Hola near Tana river which took care of the northern frontier.

David sheldrick believed that it was important to ascertain the correct movement of elephant herds in and out of the park to asses their range noting that some might wonder off into the many hunting blocks that dotted the periphery of the park so he constructed a primitive way of marking as many elephants as possible using a container filled with paint and having a muzzle at the one end and connected to a compressed air cylinder at the other end. He first tested its effectiveness and range on the orphaned elephants in his compound and the real trials were done at the Mudanda rock water hole. The limited range of the device was always going to be a hindrance but over weeks they managed to mark many wild elephants. Keeping tabs with the marked elephants also provide to be very hard since the management did not have aerial surveillance capabilities at that time but they chanced upon them during their normal travels in the park and outside and it is through this that they observed that elephant herds were not restricted in their movements and they utilized the entire park and beyond, depending on fresh vegetation and water holes. It is important to note that the paint only lasted till the next rainy season when they wallowed and covered themselves in mud, but it did serve its purpose. .....

 END OF PART ONE..

THE FOUNDERS OF CONSERVATION IN E.A.

The white population in colonial Kenya were the minority yet they were the only group allowed to hunt in the local traditional reserves they created and Africans were only allowed to use their traditional methods of hunting where they only killed wildlife for the pot , but the ‘ mzungu’ as the natives called them would hunt priced animals and sell or keep trophies because the game laws favored them and made life intolerable for Africans , so hunting of lions , elephants and the huge buffalo was the preserve of the few whites. The colonial government justified its repression by claiming that Africans would wipe out the game if given free licenses to hunt, but it is believed that the undercurrent of racism didn’t bubble over until Uhuru  “ independence “ gave Africans a chance to vent their feelings.

Things got really bad when a new brand of poachers from the mushrooming towns brought in commercial gains into the game war and they would bribe peasant farmers into killing game. There was a distinction between a traditional hunter and the new breed of commercial meat poachers who were mainly town folks in that traditional hunters had boundless knowledge of wildlife and they were undoubtedly part of the romance and mystiques of Africa as held by the white hunters as opposed to the new group who were led by greed and who used firearms to wantonly kill game for money.

Mervyn Hugh Cowie who was a retired army colonel had established himself as a strong believer in wildlife preservation and he had in many occasions suggested the formation of National Parks as the last safe havens for game but the local white population opposed his ideas because they feared that they would be cut off from their fun and ecstasy of trophy hunting, so as a last resort, he artfully planted a letter in the east Africa  standard newspaper siding with the farmers calling for all wild animals to be shot and for the so called Nairobi Commonage { current Nairobi national park} to be turned over as farm land  , and to hide his identity he signed as ‘ old settler’ .  It took a bit of time and plenty of talks amid international and public protests , before the ruse paid off and the government formed a committee to examine the matter and a national parks board was eventually established with Cowie as its chairman. The Nairobi National park was established in 1946 and there after other parks followed including Serengeti which was started in 1951. Mr. Cowie was made the first director of the Nairobi Park.

It must have been due to a reflection of his successes in balancing his needs to the preserve with the needs of the local population that he remained director of Parks after Kenya gained independence, and it was rumored that Cowie chased a wounded elephant away from princess Elizabeths party during her visit in 1952 to the Treetops hotel in Aberdare park.

The whites in colonial EA were apprehensive because by 1955 their government was contemplating handing over the reins of government to the Africans but they were not sure of the future of wildlife , and there could be no doubt that the dividing lines were being drawn, with the natives intent in killing off wildlife they had come to hate and the Europeans who thought of preserving them. It is obvious that conflict between humans and wild animals came into fore in EA when the natives came to realize that only the whites were allowed to kill game and the game department took days or never responded to the cries of the local farmers when wildlife destroyed their farms, but they would respond immediately when natives killed a problem animal in their farms. These was the only reason why Africans hated wild animals, which is why they aided poaching gangs that decimated wildlife for commercial gains.

Human wildlife conflict is an exam that we have failed to pass even today because we have not stopped the fight between man and wild animals . We have failed to spell out the legislation in support of utilization as inscribe in the constitution, yet we are the lead agency in the formulation and implementation of the policies related to wildlife utilization,  and we have decided to bury our heads in the sand hopping and wishing that the conflict will snooze off till we retire.  We are sure to be judged fairly by history, but i fear that history books will not remember us like the legendary Colonel Mervyn Hugh Cowie, for we failed in the commissions and omissions in the performance of our primary duties which is to restore harmony between man and wildlife.

I beg to be corrected.

CADET TRAINING 1992.

It was te second year since the inception of the Kenya Wildlife service ( KWS ) and the elephant poaching was escalating nation wide and the service came up with a strategy of recruiting young and energetic commanders to lead the newly trained rangers in magadi. They conducted a nationwide exercise and twenty eight cadets were recruited and they reported to manyani field school early January 1992 for a platoon commanders course. The team included, Paul Kipkoech, Dickson Lesimirdana, Justus Bartenge, Peter Lekeren, Elema Halake, Abdi Doti, Jacob Nangomo, Elema Saru, Zakayo Leparie, Ruben Lenanguram, George Osuri, Michael Lenaimadu, Samuel Tokore, Kwiriga Babu, Stephen Mageto, Stephen Shani, James Ole Kipuri, Abdi Nasir, James Oundo, Francis Lesilau, John Suge, Oliver Mnyambo, Joseph Kavi, Kamau Ndacho, Jacob Orahle , Ali sugow, Osman Ibrahim, Rashid Noor better known as Cobra and me. Most of us were working in government ministries, some teachers , one was a priest who could not stand the seminary, students who just came out of secondary school and a few others who were working in the service at the time. A complete combination that represented the whole country and we endured the hardships and the cruelty of the trainers, mostly a man called Abdi who taught us parade drills but the greatest humiliation came from our own NCOs who could not understand why we and not them were taking the course.

The cadets on a skills at arm lesson. Zakayo leparie  alias “ crocko”is demonstrating during a skill at arms lesson and the arrow is pointed to the blog author.

Manyani field training school was the old APU camp and the facility was run down completely so the service was in the process of renovating it into an institution capable of training rangers on field craft and other related operations .  For some of us the facility resembled a ghost camp with little human presence due to the bush thickness. I was among the first to arrive and were met by a person who advised us to wait for the rest at the manyani prison place and we found course instructors there who led us to a small pub called  “ pumzika “ where we waited for our transport and they gave us insight of the course  and we were in very high spirits by the time we drove into the gate, but there was a reception party waiting for us at the entrance and my day was ruined. It is important to note here that i worked with the ministry of agriculture for six years as a livestock production assistant after graduating from AHITI [ animal health and industry training institute] Kabete and i had also taken the courses on AI [ artificial insemination ] and on meat inspection , and i was assisting the meat inspector at the maralal  slaughter house prior to reporting to manyani. So i had the characteristics  of a typical civil servant , and i had generated a small beer belly due to the free liver we received every day In relation to the spoils of the trade.

The reception party in manyani refused to listen to my plea and we were directed to climb a stone hill steep enough to be manmade in the assertion that we were to collect our admission letters up there. I tried to remove my coat but one man called Francis Kurgat insisted that i climb the hill with everything that i came with but i refused to carry my suitcase and I scrambled up to catchup with the others. We did not find the admission letters so we struggled to climb down the other side of the hill and when we reached our starting point we were panting and grasping for air but they forced us to jog and i fainted , and they forgot me for a while. What a reception. We were then made to carry our baggage and in a run we trotted to a makeshift store where we were given a mattress, a pillow and a blanket. Some rangers who were on a promotional course were called in to help us erect tents and I personally  remember one who was called shebow who demonstrated to us how to clear the ground using bare hands. I remember this man well because a few years later he disappeared with no trace to date with field  allowance for the special operations base (SOB).

Manyani had a strange collection of instructors and I remember an old man with a foul mouth who smoked a lot and i still don’t remember what his exact duties were but he was fond of drawing landscapes. He was called Kanyi, then there was sergeant Maina who made us to believe that every head of a goat slaughtered there belonged to him,  sergeant Mailu of the “ nyakaa “ fame, there was Cpl Kemei who called us officer kurutu, Cpl Kimani Mweiga [comrade] Cpl Jeremiah  Kurgat, Cpl Francis Kurgat, Cpl Ayienda, the cook called pulei, Heri the footballer [mjomba] and Lewis chege to name but a few. Our course officer was the big GSU man called Marcus Ochola who is currently the Rift Valley Regional Police Commander. We had three commandants during our seven month long course and this included Mr. Mbuthia who died in a car accident along the Mombasa/Nairobi highway near sultan Hamud, Mr Thomas Mailu and Mr. Fredrick  Kiminda. We spend the first three weeks trying to get fit by running every morning , and being at the drill square with corporal Abdi the whole day. The first two weeks were really hard on me that I contemplated desertion and I actually called the livestock office in maralal to inquire if my resignation letter could be withdrawn but I resigned to my fate when I learned that the letter was long sent to Nakuru. I later learned that I was not the only one contemplating the same but junior colleagues who were taking the ranger to corporal course at the school gave us A lot of encouragement With promises of a brighter future.

Corporal Abdi was a brute who got pleasure in other people’s pain and we really suffered at the drill square while he took us through the motions and the squads as he broke the drill into three steps. The whole team would be punished when a member spoiled a step and I tell you very many of the members had never learned of the Boy Scout movement and marching was an act from outer space. Some were swinging both hands forward and I would lie if I described how they moved their feet because in most cases they swing forward the right arm together with the right leg. All this translated to a specific punishment as prescribed by Abdi and climbing the hill behind the office became a norm. We cherished lunch brake not because of the food but it gave us some relief from the monster and from the scourge. I dreaded going to the pit latrines because of the pain in my  thighs when trying to stand after the act, and this I later understand must have been why a platoon of masai rangers Who were referred as “ lot 60 “ brought in for training refused to enter the joints and they did their thing in the surrounding bushes.

We got into the rhythm of training after the first month and we impressed everybody including ourselves to say the least after more lessons were introduced such as field craft, skill at arms and leadership. Only one person left the training and the rest of us bonded with one another , first to evade Abdi but i should also confess that we just felt like we had a responsibility to excel and silence some section of instructors who had a notion that most of us would not complete the training. Skills at arms was a different sensation all together and we worked so hard in preparation for the standard classification exercise which sifted the bold shooters and the first timers. We completed our syllabus in the fifth month and we were taken for the March and shoot exercise that combined all field exercises including close quarter battle night navigation and ambushes , which could only be done in the thickets of Oldonyo nyiekie in magadi. We navigated out of the hills and valleys at night using compasses and maps with stars as strategic beacons, and we overworked our instructors on the magadi plateau during field craft where we would reorganize ( reorg on me ) three kilometers from the charge-through site. That was our best way to give back to the instructors. On our las night in magadi a stand to procedure was sounded at night by our instructors to check on our level of alertness and we all dashed into our kips except Jacob Orahle who was found outside the kip and he was pronounced dead as per the rules but he refused to accept and he kept on claiming that he was still alive. We excelled in magadi and our course officer said as much , before we trooped back to Manyani believing in ourselves and knowing that we would contribute immensely in protecting and conserving our heritage.

The Rtd senior warden Mr.Geofrey Lolkinyie who was the  admin officer then with Dickson in the background and the author in one of our progressive security meetings.

We never sat in conventional class room for the entire duration of our course in manyani and there were no chairs and we took our lessons under an acacia tree which had very broad branches and lots of shade. We had to sweep the class every morning and pour water to reduce dust. We made do with stones as chairs and we wrote on our laps and most of us had holes in our trousers due to the hard surface of the stone seats. The chalk board was tied to the stem of a tree and in windy conditions two students would volunteer to hold it while the instructor wrote on it. We ate our lunch and dinner under a shade less tree near the make shift kitchen and we had benches made of poles as seats. We were made to believe that this was not a punishment, but part of our training.

We all went through an interview held by a board Which was led by the Deputy director security [ DDS ] but we were kept in training for another two months in Manyani due to some administrative issues where the DDS was strategizing and forming more companies to accommodate us and when we finally graduated we went to our duties as posted and I was sent to Mt. Elgon (C coy ) . I didn’t understand why the instructors were feeling sorry for me after the posting and I got concerned and I had to inquire the reasons but I was only told that Mt. Elgon is a very hard place to work but I proceeded to my new station without any reservations and I led my men in to our assignments with the pride of a leader due to the training and hard work that I under went in Manyani.