The Milgis Trust

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 22 2008 | By: milgistrust

I’ve been walking in the Matthews/Ndoto region since 1989, running camel safaris.. Although we have seen the tracks and have proabably lost 20 camels to lion!!, I have not sighted a male lion since 1990!!..Because they were so shy, insecure, and persecuted.. yesterday we watched for half an hour the finest lion couple frolicking, down in the middle of the Lugga, from the Milgis trust base… The Samburu who we work with were so excited…And I know that all the people who used to frequent this area in the 60’s/70’s, who many times have told me’ the Milgis is finished.. No game left?? ‘ will be very happy to hear this news… I am particularly happy because is a result of our work…weldone our scouts… and thanks to all the people who support us..

3 responses so far

Category: elephants | Date: May 19 2008 | By: milgistrust

I am happy to say that Kenya Wildlife Service has invited me to be an honorary Warden, so I went to Nairobi to get my instructions.. We [all the Honorary wardens] had a very good and fruitful meeting with the Director of KWS, the 6 new Assistant Directors, and many of the District Wardens…I was very impressed with the effort to make the extended family of the KWS welcome.. With the shortage of tourists in Kenya the KWS is really suffering from lack of funds and it is nice to know that we can be of use to them, and that they appeciate our effort to conserve wildlife..

No sign of the cause of the two Elephants death, but the scouts are making a special effort to check that there are no other elephants limping, the good news is there are no signs, and there are alot around at he moment.. I went to a big Kenya wedding over the week end at Lewa Downs, and spoke to all the conservationists about the idea of using a metal detector to check for Bullets, and generally every one thought it was a good idea, but it has to be a good one!!, and if you cant find them early on at least when the carcass drys up one will definitly find the bullets on the ground… Does any one have much Experience in this..

The tribal fighting continues… very uneasy west of and around the base, but the positive thing is the areas where the Grevey Zebra live, their favorite feed, will have a chance to regenerate, now that all the stock has been moved out..

One response so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 08 2008 | By: admin

Thanks for every ones comments on the cause of death in my previous post… The only unusual thing we found was that one of the Elephants was dragging a leg.. Every one is suggesting poison, poaching etc… But about 6 years ago we had possibly a similar thing where quite a few young elephants died of septicemia, it usually started with a swollen leg, and it was during the rainy season again.. Lets hope we can find the problem.

In the last month there has been an out break of tribal fighting between the Turkana and Samburu, and there has been a massive migration of people from the west of the the Milgis Trust base which is unfortunate.. There are quite a few guns with all these people so we have to be very vigilant.. If we hear shots we are immediately on the case… most of the time it is target practice..

Tags: elephants, Milgis lugga, Milgis Trust, poaching, Samburu, Turkana, wildlife poison

5 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 07 2008 | By: admin

What we have discovered in the last 3 days is that it is not very easy to blog from a satellite phone!! which is what I use up at the Milgis, so explaining my disapearance… I am also not so ‘au fait’ with the internet as I have lived most of my life in the bush… so please bear with me as I learn!! We got a radio call on the 4th may, with the news that the solar panels from the Milgis school have been stolen..How very disappointing, but we feel that the elders are hot on the trail of the perpetrators.. What the search lead to was even worse.. We got a message on monday evening that there was an Elephant struggling to get up in the Laana Nikan [lower Seiya]Lugga,..Our scouts were there at 6 the next morning to find it had died in the night, with no obvious signs of the reason. But on their way they found a part of a foot of another Elephant, so presumed there was another one dead somewhere… Finally after a few hours searching in very thick bush, they found another dead Elephant, that had died about 5 days before, seemingly it looks like the same reason..It is always worrying when you find two dead in such close proximity with no obvious signs. We immediately got in contact with the district warden to alert the station closest to this area to check this out…We hope to have some info soon.. THE GOOD NEWS.. is that we heard lion roaring on all three nights, from our ’star ceilinged’ beds!!, at Elkanto [ Milgis Base] … four years ago the lion would not have dared…..

7 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 03 2008 | By: admin

This is not a new conservation project, its been going since 2004, but we’ve only just discovered wildlife direct.!!.. 3 years too late, but happy to be here.. This area in northern Kenya is unique, wild, unknown..and exciting.. and what we have managed to achieve since we started is commendable, and mainly due to the Samburu and Rendille people really responding to our calls…BUT we’ve got lots more to do!! Just to introduce you to what we do, and where we are, please look up our website milgistrustkenya.com  and we look forward to giving you our news, and your feed back… Thanks every one!! Helen

3 responses so far