The Milgis Trust

Category: Conservation Awareness, Forest, Grevy's Zebra, Samburu, Wild Dog, elephants | Date: Feb 20 2009 | By: milgistrust

Uh oh, Luca you are going to be busy!!…You cut these trees down in Samburuland, now you have to pay back the traditional way! Its one goat per tree and and a cleansing ceremony, in which … you need to slaughter the goat/sheep, mix the stomach contents, with the fat and pour the contents round each tree… Then you have be smeared in fat, and this can only be done by somebody who is ‘unclean’ … [Unclean meaning somebody who may have killed somebody, or has no home, a straggler lets say… In Kitchen Swahili we would call it a ‘tangatangera’…We have been delving further into the archives of the old traditional ways of conservation and its fascinating… WHERE AND WHY IS IT GOING WRONG?? … The Milgis Trust is going to try and ‘travel back down this old road’ and bring these strong rules back..

1… As I said above if you cut the branches off a tree, or cut it down you have to be cleansed, Moses Lesoloyia, our manager saw it in Baragoi area when he was a child… Woe betide you if you cut a tree that has been used for a big meeting, or special ceremony… Its just not done!

2… You can not kill an animal unless you intend to eat it… This is why the Zebras have survived in Samburu areas, as they will not eat any horse like animal..

3… If you hack the tusks out of a dead elephant, you will NEVER be able to go to a traditional Samburu ceremony again… You have to wait for the Elephant to rot, and you pull them out.. When the two Elephants died near the Milgis base in may, when the KWS [ kenya wildlife service ] arrived to check on the situation, and to take the tusks, they had to go back to base to find somebody of a different tribe to cut the tusks out, as the three men who came happened to be Samburu!! They could not risk leaving them on the elephant just in case a poacher or person looking for tusks to sell on, took them..

4.. If you kill a black animal you are unclean… IE if you kill a wild dog, then your children can not wear the traditional black skin during the circumcision time.. Also If somebody in your family kills an ostrich, then forever the children can not wear ostrich feathers in their head band after being circumcised..

The traditional black skin worn after the circumcision ceremony, and the ostrich feathers, LABARTAC, in the head band… possibly the guy on the left, comes from a family that killed an ostrich!! The Lesoloyia family can not wear these feathers because someone way back they don’t even know who, killed an ostrich…

This is a strange one!… If a grey animal comes into your boma/enclosure round your house.. This is a bad omen!… this includes dikdik, hare,warthog,elephant,rhino.. and any others.. They have to slaughter a goat… mix the blood, stomach contents, and fat together, and pour this mixture around the perimeter, and the elders will bless the boma… If you are knocked down by any of these grey animals you will be smeared with this same mixture, and again this has to be done by an unclean/hopeless person!! [literally translated] ie he is not going to lose any more by touching this concoction!!

We have a scout meeting at the end of tis month and will be talking about these traditions, and how we can bring them back… If you haven’t read the blog 21/12/08 it has lots more!!

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Category: Errosion, elephants | Date: Feb 16 2009 | By: milgistrust

As we flew in my Cessna 182 [ small four seater aircraft] into Wilson airport, in Nairobi, this was what I told the tower as I requested landing permission, and that I wanted to come strait in!! The lady in the tower thought she had heard wrong, but eventually when she realised, was very helpful in giving me priority!!…Yes.. sadly another baby elephant has lost its mother and herd, and yesterday we took it down to Daphne Sheldrick… We have not found out exactly the circumstances of how it came about that she got left behind, but what we were told is she fell down one of these dangerous erosion gullies, as per my last blog…Did I put my ‘black’ tongue on it.??. Too sad for words to hear about another elephant found lost and hungry, way down the Milgis Lugga, at a place called Marti Dorop, at 9 am Saturday… We got the message on the radio at 6 pm…and I was told that Lesuuda, one of our scouts was on his way down to pick her up with the KWS team from Latakwen…But no news of how old it was, how big etc.. 7.45 on a very crackly radio, all I could hear was that they had not reached the place yet… So we had to wait till the morning… I spoke to Daphne and Angela at the D.S.W.T. [David Sheldrick wildlife trust] to warn them of the news.. It went down badly!, as literally in the last two days, two other young elephants had been brought in, and they are over whelmed with baby elephants from around the country… But when I suggested we tried to find the herd, Daphne was adamant that it was not a good idea, as it already had been too long, and with the smell of humans on the ely, the herd actually may kill it.. I did not sleep all night, wondering if I was going to beable to get the baby into my aeroplane, and at what stage I was going to have to admit it was too big!! Could Lesuuda judge whether or not it was too big!! It was already a one hour flight from where I was, but hoped at least we could help with the flying…

The next morning, as soon as it was clear enough to communicate [ for some reason its impossible to hear on HF radios at night] We got the message that the very little female, barely a week to ten days old, was at the Milgis runway waiting to be collected… After all the size was no problem..!! When we arrived there was a big crowd at the runway… amazing how many people can ‘come out of the woodwork, in such a remote place!!.. The little Ely was just too sweet, trumpeting with excitement!! adorable! But very hungry… We decided to get her to her new home quick quick!! We put her on a mattress behind the front seats, standing, with two people holding her, put a blanket over her as we started the engine… Not a worry though, and as soon as we took off she fell asleep, and eventually about 10 minutes before we landed she lay down and went into a deep sleep on Lesuudas lap…Did not even wake up on my rather bumpy landing at Wilson airport!… Lesuuda told me that he and her had not slept or eaten all night, and even he was ready to collapse!.. But he still had the energy to go and see where his little friends [ Elephants bond to kindness very quickly] new home would at the DSWT and also to learn more about looking after these ‘minute’ fragile creatures!!…. Angela will give us the rest of the news when she can!!

Lesuuda and his hungry friend on the Milgis runway.. We have learnt not to try to feed these youngsters with cows milk, as this does not agree with their stomachs…only special milk formula which one doesn’t find in the bush! so shes only had water, for the last 24 hours…

It was a bit of a squash in the plane!!

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Category: Conservation Awareness, Errosion | Date: Feb 10 2009 | By: milgistrust

Just what are we going to do about it… It is very frightening…. Every time I fly up to the North over the plains west of the Matthews this is what I see. I keep taking more pictures as it just seems to look worse each time… But how can we stop it???… Tell people to stop breeding?? Tell them to cut down on there goats etc?? [ Its abit like asking us to cut our money we have in the bank by half!] , stop cutting the trees down to feed the stock, stop cutting the forests down for timber, research!, essential oils [Our scouts intervened a truck leaving the Kirisias just yesterday full of Sandal wood, hopefully the KWS are hot in pursuit]… Make dams, ie stem the rushing water flow?? … What else… At what stage do we [ humans] admit that there is a problem… I’m abit baffled.. You hardly ever hear our leaders, say any thing about the environment not being able to sustain the pressure we put on it… We just blame it on every thing else, the Climate change, No rain, too much rain, … never the fact that maybe we are too many…. No I don’t have children!!..

We can’t just close our eyes to it… Its dangerous, really dangerous…In so many ways…

Our head scout, Daniel Lentokunye ‘the elephant’, was on leave and was walking with some friends to Rumuruti in the Laikipia district, to return the skins used during his wedding to his second wife, to her mothers manyatta. He had to do this before he could proceed with any other ceremonies. He was going through an area called Ol Donyo Nyiru, where there is alot of the erosion like in the picture below and found a herd of Elephants in a terrible tiz, rushing around trumpeting. So he went to investigate and found a calf stuck in one of these erosion drains. They dug and dug with their spears, until they managed to get the calf out. They were fortunate enough, this time, to rescue the little one and see it reunited with its mother.

We hear of animals all the time falling into these gullies. Some body came to me when I took this picture and asked… WHAT CAN WE DO???

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Category: Milgis lugga, elephants | Date: Feb 03 2009 | By: milgistrust

First I have to clear every ones worries of the wounded elephant, reported 22 January… It seems that it was a ‘game’, to try and get help from somebody because this cow had been killed…Possibly they were looking for compensation… When the news first came through, we got a message that a cow had been killed by an elephant, and somebody needs to get there immediately, but it was a very long way and these things happen, so then they came back with the news that the Elephant had been wounded, and the next message was it was dead!!!.. Oh dear ! It turned out that it was a fight over ’sagiram’…The acacia tortilis pods that fall twice a year, and every one from the squirrels to the Elephants, Goats, sheep, cows and camels go crazy over them… Fortunately these accidents don’t happen very often, and often you will see elephants peacefully eating ’sagiram’ with peoples livestock, one seed pod at a time!, even the stock benefiting from the Elephants being able to shake the trees to make the pods fall, but for some reason the Elephant got really angry with the cow, and that was it.. Nobody saw it, nobody knows which Elephant it was. I felt that it may be something to do with the renewed poaching and the Elephants becoming jittery again… On the subject of compensation, this is another big issue, which i think has to be very very carefully thought out… as it would mean people do not try to look after their stock… its a hot subject though, as I think the lion conservation people have discovered….

On our last safari at full moon, we had a big Elephant that came just below our camp on a high bank of the lower Milgis to drink water from a deep well… Funny, he chose to drink right there, below our camp, lots of people, camels and dogs!, as there is water close to the surface literally half a km away on the other side of the Lugga… maybe the water was sweeter in this about 8 feet well.. We were woken by the dogs barking, and this apparition in the moon light came out into the middle of the lugga.. The Elephant paced back wards and for wards, checking things out before he came in… He cautiously knelt down, but could not reach the water, so the next trick was to lift his back leg up so he could reach further!!… It was a wonderful sight, only 10 feet away below our tents!!.. he had a looooong drink, and melted back into the moon light… What a privilege…

. Where the Elephant was kneeling..Would have been more dramatic with the Elephant in the moon light in the picture, but I was busy holding the dogs!

We also heard about another Elephant in the Matabauwa Lugga, west of the Ndotos, where the wells are too deep, about 25 feet, for the Elephants to reach.. But this one has a great deal with the local people… When they are watering there goats he pitches up and stands around… They fill the Ngarau [trough carved out of wood] up with water, and go and stand across the way… He comes in to drink… If the water is not enough he goes and stands alittle way away, while they fill it again!! He is a completely wild Elephant making use of his friendly neighbours!!.. Would love to see that…

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