The Milgis Trust

Category: Samburu, Turkana | Date: Sep 26 2008 | By: milgistrust

Our manager came back with this very bad news today… What we can gather is these Greveys usually live in this area which was ‘no mans land’ after the fighting in June, July, where the Samburu [ who do not eat Zebra] have gone back to lately, with their cattle as this an area that has had a bit of rain, but on the day that they went to water their stock they say the Turkana came in and obviously found this group of 5 Grevey Zebras, and shot at them wildly… One was killed and cooked on the spot, 4 died of their wounds on their way to the Suiyan Lugga.. Two have been eaten by hyena, and two were almost untouched… When they turned them over they found bullet wounds..[ The scout that originally found the dead animals is the man who was shot in the hand on that last raid..15th July, his hand has not recovered yet]…

On the 8th of October we will be having a meeting with the leaders of this area, with K.W.S. and the grevey Zebra trust to try and stop this terrible slaughter… This is truly very sad..

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Category: Samburu | Date: Sep 25 2008 | By: milgistrust

With only about 2000 of these magnificent Zebras left in the world… Three more gone, is disastrous??… Our Manager has rushed off to the scene west of the base to see if there are any clues to what may have killed them…Any ideas! of what to look for?… Could the same virus that is killing the goats be the problem… It is getting dryer and dryer but this morning there are quite a few whirl winds, which is a good sign, its very very hot and the convulvulous are out in flower again!!.. So maybe at the new moon we may be lucky… This morning the women from Ilgwe Eldome came to ask me for help, because their goats are all dying… The goats do look terrible…Virus, burning and over grazing combined with the on going drought is not a great mix.. What can one advise?? I told them that we will have a meeting after our safari and discuss these problems… I told them that us women have got to ‘all pull together’ to make things better……

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Category: Samburu | Date: Sep 25 2008 | By: milgistrust

With only about 2000 of these magnificent Zebras left in the world… Three more gone, is disastrous??… Our Manager has rushed off to the scene west of the base to see if there are any clues to what may have killed them…Any ideas! of what to look for?… Could the same virus that is killing the goats be the problem… It is getting dryer and dryer but this morning there are quite a few whirl winds, which is a good sign, its very very hot and the convulvulous are out in flower again!!.. So maybe at the new moon we may be lucky… This morning the women from Ilgwe Eldome came to ask me for help, because their goats are all dying… The goats do look terrible…Virus, burning and over grazing combined with the on going drought is not a great mix.. What can one advise?? I told them that we will have a meeting after our safari and discuss these problems… I told them that us women have got to ‘all pull together’ to make things better……

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Category: Milgis lugga, Samburu, elephants | Date: Sep 23 2008 | By: milgistrust

Finally back from our so called holiday with our Spanish friends!! We’re exhausted!! Masai Mara, Baringo, Bogoria, Solio, Aberdares,and Kiwayu at the coast…It was great to be a tourist in my own country… In fact we didn’t see any others… Except a man who told us he had seen some pandas in the Bamboo in the Aberdares!! I have one very amusing memory in my head of our Samburu warrior arriving at Lake Baringo, by plane from the Mara, and the Njemps [ a small maa speaking tribe] man who looks after the aeroplanes being absolutely amazed to see a warrior, and taking his mobile phone out of his pocket and taking a photo of him… How times have changed in the last twenty years..

On Sunday we called in to David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to check on ‘Parsaloi’.. The Baby Elephant rescued from a well in the Milgis Lugga, literally hours before the Lugga came down in full flood… He is very big for a month old baby Elephant… I think he is going to turn out to be the size of elephant that people remember in the old days from the Milgis…Lets hope!! He doesn’t stop for a minute, hes very very busy, and always playing… We also saw how big our little matriarch ‘Lesanju’ is now… Below is a picture of her bathing in front of all the guests!! It also shows how much of her ear she lost after the Samburu children had finished, marking their elephant??… Shame.. she’s lost almost half her ear.. and it is so important for their cooling…The story of her rescue is on our Milgis Trust website under 2006 news…

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Category: elephants | Date: Sep 15 2008 | By: milgistrust

Just a quick note to tell you all, that the Baby Elephant is doing well… at the DSWT orphanage… He had an interesting trip in the Helicopter!!! The full story will be out soon…

I am still on safari with our Spanish friends…Delayed by an elephant for one hour!!, in the Aberdare mountains yesterday, where we meet a fabulous bull Elephant, on the road… He had absolutely no intention of moving off the road… Wonderful experience for our Samburu men…

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Category: elephants | Date: Sep 13 2008 | By: milgistrust

Sadly we received bad news yesterday morning, that one of our scouts found a baby elephant had fallen down a well… Literally 10 hours before the Milgis Lugga came down in full flood, as there has been alot of rain in the Kirisia hills in the last couple of days.. Despite huge efforts to avoid a repeat of October 2006, when several baby elephants fell down deep wells, 3 died and one was rescued… called Lesanju, who has been a star at the David Sheldrick wildlife Trust orphanage ‘Lesanju’ the matriarch at 21 months old… The new baby has been taken down to the orphanage today…He must be very hungry as he has not had any milk for possibly 36 hours..After the rescue of Lesanju, Daphne Sheldrick had given me some special milk just in case this would happen again, but we could not get to it because it was on the other side of the flooded lugga…He was rescued from KWS Latakwen by helicopter at ten am this morning, and taken to an airstrip to be taken to Nairobi.. At this stage we await news to find out how he is…What a shame..

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 09 2008 | By: milgistrust

Yes I’m in the Mara!!, with three of our Samburu people that have worked for us for many years, and one scout from the Milgis Trust, all kindly invited by a Spanish couple who walked to lake Turkana with us last year, with the camels…These four men have heard me ‘go on and on’ about conservation, and looking after what is theres!!.. Our friends from Spain wanted to see the famous migration, [ which we have missed by the way!], and also wanted to see the reaction of our men from the north when they saw this amazing place!!.. Lions all over the place, including two very young cubs!! A leopard trying to sleep on a very thin branch, with its kill well out of danger from any one pinching it above it! Two beautiful cheetahs so relaxed with us, they just turned over and went back to sleep! A porcupine trying to hide behind a piece of grass, then deciding to run for it, gosh they can run fast!! A serval cat catching a guinea fowl!, and to end the day… a herd of Elephants all around the car… and as we were leaving being charged by a little four month old baby … It was too ’sweet’ to be true…And by the way we have not seen another car.. hardly!! The Samburu can not believe there eyes!, they are speechless and in awe, especially this after noon right in front of our camp … 11 lions just skirt around a herd of cows!!.. We’ve got lots of work to do in the Milgis, and what I know is these four guys, will take a very clear message back to the north!!!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 03 2008 | By: milgistrust

We have had some big fires last month in the Luggas as well, at least 100 Acacia Tortilis trees.. have been lost lost… [please see THANKS to Nature!! to know the value of these fabulous trees] Many were deliberately started by people who said that a leopard/lion had eaten a goat.. What have they achieved by doing this, because the carnivore moved on, and hundreds of dead trees are left?? One big fire, was a ‘mistake’, [actually the one in the bottom picture] in that a hungry traveller had stolen a goat to eat and he had hidden himself well in the thick bush on the side of the lugga, to cook the goat, but unfortunately his fire caught the bush, and he ran for it! Our scouts followed him, but when he threatened to shoot them they left him to go… Others are started by people extracting honey from bee hives, with the excitement of finding honey, they forget to put the fire out that they lit to smoke the bees out..

The elders visited the base to discuss this problem… They are very angry… ‘This burning has to stop’…They announced ‘Good, I’m glad you are now telling me’.. I answered.!! mmmmmm progress!! I feel…. But even better was the punishment for lighting fires!! If and when they catch the perpetrators, and this is usually quite easy as they check the mans tracks, generally every one here knows every one else’s tracks, its incredible!!.. If not they follow them back to the Manyattas [homestead].. What they will now do, is a group of elders will visit the homestead, in the evening and will start choosing goats that he will pay a fine with.. they will choose the best goats!! The fine will depend on how serious the fire was, and how many important trees were burnt!!.. Once he has paid his fine..He then has to throw a huge ’sikuku’ [party], for the community, before the elders will forgive and bless him..

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 01 2008 | By: milgistrust

What a shame a match is such an easy and cheap thing to buy!! The destruction that a raging forest fire does is unimaginable, just a single match… Sometimes hundreds of acres of virgin forest is burnt in the hope that the grass will grow for their cows instead… imagine the repercussions… Well the Samburu are really beginning to see these repercussions… Its another subject that I have talked about until I’m ‘blue in the face’… and felt that I am not being heard… The Northern Ndoto Mountains have been burnt and burnt every dry season… Now the people of Lesirikan, who used to have a flowing river through the town, have to dig deep wells to get to water…When the rains come the flooding is enormous, sometimes washing away ‘bomas’ [ enclosure for livestock ] that have been there for years… Now we have a good example, at least our warning may be heard.!! A pity ‘we’ have to learn the hard way..

The 5 beautiful mountains that are in our Milgis Trust conservation area are like ’steep islands out of a desert’… rising from 3000 up to 8000 feet very quickly. When a fire starts at the bottom, it doesn’t stop until it gets to the top…Its agony to watch… The wind swirls around fuelling the flames…Every thing in its path is destroyed.. We really need money to employ more scouts to try to stop this meaningless destruction… $ 110 per month… Apart from fires the forests on these mountains are still very much in tact…The Samburu take there cows go up there in the dry season, sometimes they cut branches from trees to feed them, they have for years, what we have to be careful with is that these cows do not become too many!

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