Thursday, May 16, 2013

Ranger Academy


At the crack of dawn last Friday, Timothy ole Mosiany (red t-shirt), our Operations Manager, and I headed off on the 600 kilometre drive to the Kenya Wildlife Service Law Enforcement Training Academy at Manyani in Tsavo National Park.

We went to see 9 of our conservation Rangers under the command of Corporal LenisaLolojuu (kneeling, left) at passing out parade. Their very smart new uniforms had been kindly supplied by the African Wildlife Foundation, who also sponsored their course fees. William Kiprono, Director of KWS reviewed the Parade, and Dame Daphne Sheldrick was guest of honour.

They had been on an intensive 3-month Ranger training course learning about conservation and anti-poaching operations, and covering specialist subjects such as first aid, GPS navigation, conservation marketing, and wildlife law.

The parade, passing out a total of 68 conservancy Rangers from all over Kenya, was an impressive display of drill, accompanied by the KWS brass band, on the Academy parade ground in the magnificent heart of Tsavo West National Park.

The men have now arrived back on duty at Ol Lentille with huge enthusiasm and new skills, ready to transfer their learning to our other 18 Rangers.

The Rangers play a vital role at Ol Lentille, responsible as they are for preventing poaching, livestock theft, and illegal grazing. At Ol Lentille, we have had only one elephant killed by poachers in 7 years. This compares with 36 at a nearby Conservancy, and 298 in our wider area in 2012 alone. At this, our sole poaching incident, we were able to mobilise very quickly and prevented the poachers from removing the ivory from the elephant they had killed, even though night was closing in. The following morning we called in bloodhounds, and tracked the culprits to a distant village where, unfortunately, scent was lost. The ivory was safely handed over to the Kenya Wildlife Service for secure storage.


Pictured L-R: Back Row Rangers Lemasian, Leparkiom, Lesootia, Lokitama, Meshame, Sinore. Front Row Corporal Lolojuu, Rangers Mayiani, Morongo

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