International International studbook for Grevy's zebra ... - Marwell Zoo

Grevy’s Grevy’s zebra zebra cconservation
c onservation activities
Groups and organisations mentioned in this report are:
AWF = African Wildlife Foundation www.awf.org
GZT = Grevy’s zebra Trust www.grevyszebratrust.org
GZTC = Grevy’s zebra Technical Committee
KWS = Kenya Wildlife Service www.kws.org
Lewa or LWC = Lewa Wildlife Conservancy www.lewa.org
Marwell = Marwell Wildlife www.marwell.org.uk/conservation
NRT = Northern Rangelands Trust www.nrt-kenya.org
Princeton = University of Princeton/Denver Zoo www.princeton.edu/~equids/people.html
STE = Save the Elephants www.savetheelephants.org
For more detailed information on all these, please see previous studbooks.
National Developments:
National survey
As part of the National Conservation & Management Strategy for Grevy’s zebra (Kenya Wildlife Service 2008), the
range of Grevy’s zebra in Kenya has been divided into five contiguous management zones (Fig. 1). Four of these
zones were covered during the National Survey in 2008 (Low et al., 2009). The very remote North zone, including
Marsabit, Chalbi Desert and the eastern shore of Lake Turkana, however, was excluded due to its large size and
perceived low density of species, making it prohibitively expensive to survey from the air. Hence, the conservation
status of wildlife in this zone had not been established for several years. Two previous surveys, one a comprehensive
photograph survey in 2000 (Nelson & Williams, 2003), the other a preliminary investigation into the persistence of
Grevy’s zebra and the merits of further conservation work in 2005 (Woodfine et al. 2009), indicated a decline in
populations of large mammals for this region.
The Grevy’s zebra Technical Committee undertook a survey of the North Zone from 1st-23rd February 2010 using three
vehicles and a team of 10 people to fill the gap in knowledge for this zone. While previous surveys had focused on
Grevy’s zebra distribution and numbers, this latest one also included a range of other large mammals and looked into
the specific threats faced by wildlife in this region. A combination of transect counts, sociological questionnaires and
interviews with key local people was used.
Fig. 1: Map of five management zones
So far, only preliminary results on survey objectives, methods and initial results on the distribution of Grevy’s zebra,
other wildlife and livestock has been produced (Low et al., 2010) and they confirm the conclusion by the 2005 survey
that Grevy’s zebra persist around Sibiloi National Park and in the eastern Chalbi Desert and that these populations
appear vulnerable to localised extinction.
Key observations as to why this decline has occurred were:
• livestock outnumbered wildlife by many orders of magnitude and is likely to displace wildlife spatially
• access to water often restricted to livestock watering locations, some of which have recently been developed to
prevent animals from accessing the water directly. This causes major issues for Grevy’s zebra and other wildlife that
depend on access to water on a daily basis.
• poaching also appears to be a major issue, with a proliferation of guns and an erosion of cultural taboos leading to
more widespread hunting
Based on these findings, it is now believed that the populations in El Barta and Laisamis are now the northernmost
fringe of viable Grevy’s zebra populations in Kenya, and a critical buffer to the core Samburu/Laikipia population (GZT
News, 2010). A full report will be published in 2011 after analysis of the questionnaire survey has been completed.
AII
Interviews during 2010 survey © Marwell