The Milgis Trust

Category: Conservation Awareness, Desert warthog, Livestock, Northern Frontier District, Overgrazing | Date: Nov 19 2009 | By: milgistrust

Hi every one, sorry to have disappeared! Just back from a beautiful camel safari through the green hills of the Northern Frontier District!!… Its beautiful up there, we’ve had to cross flooded luggas, and slip and slide through mud, and best of all just watch the grass grow, and watching all the animals gain strength, and even to run away…

Crossing the Seiya Lugga.. Nov 09.. Camels know too well how dangerous it can be, as they can fall into pockets of air under the sand and sink in up to their heads, in water

Green grass… You probably wonder why I took this picture but its an unusual site in the N.F.D… Its incredible!! I took too many pictures of green grass..I’ll only bore you with one!!

..Desert warthogs, taken early Oct. 09,with a very simple camera, surviving on the only grass available, which is like thorns, very dry and hard, too weak to bother to run away… now you won’t see them for dust… The wildlife has suffered very badly, but if it hadn’t.t been for the Milgis Trust scouts many more would have perished, through lack of water..

Compared to the rest of Kenya so far, we have been very lucky with rain, although it is very patchy… But in the last year hundreds and thousands of trees have been cut down, and uncountable livestock has died… We came across people that have lost almost every thing they own… Its hard, but they now need to think why…. Too many people trying to live off too little, brings disaster… Are the pastoral people going to change their principals!??? As you know one of the most important mission of the Milgis Trust is to ‘conserve the peoples way of life’ in this magical country… But one thing has to change and that is the amount of stock that can live off this semi desert land… Actually, as I say, Nature has done the job, this time but its caused a lot of suffering…

Just for fun… 1st Picture taken 9 th October 09 showing tree chopped down for a hungry goat …. 2nd Pic taken end October… Same area!!

The Manager, with the area scouts are at the moment out to do a massive awareness campaign, not so much to tell the people but to see if they have learnt something… In the managers words… ‘In general the response from all the people we talk to is indicating that the last drought has opened the eyes of many in terms of the numbers of livestock we keep and the destruction of the environment. Many report that they went all the way to Marti and eventually came back to the Milgis lugga, [where people do not cut trees any more!] which rescued their animals. LOTS TO DO!!…

No responses yet

Category: Conservation Awareness, Milgis lugga, Northern Frontier District | Date: Oct 21 2009 | By: milgistrust

With your support the Milgis Trust would love to own night camera traps to capture the nocturnal activities of the wildlife within the busy Milgis ecosystem. Each and every morning the Milgis team identifies countless tracks and spoors of highly timid creatures of the night such as the Lion, Aardvark, African Wild Cat, Porcupine, Civet, Ratel and Leopard as well as numerous other mammals, reptiles, insects and birds that dwell within this land. The Aardvark above all is an important animal for the Samburu - one sighting of this incredibly shy creature means you are blessed with luck for life.

But without the necessary equipment sightings are seldom recorded. To collect, record and share such physical information on these nocturnal animals would support the awareness and understanding of the Milgis Trust’s work whilst encouraging communities to continue in their conservation efforts and aid the Trust’s scouts in providing further security for the wildlife where it is needed most.

I n d o n a t i n g o n e n i g h t c a m e r a t r a p the Milgis Trust can implement an unobtrusive and sustainable surveillance unit, collecting much needed data to help substantiate the amazing successes the Trust is receiving in the increase in wildlife species and numbers to the area, not to mention the unidentified species we believe to exist within the Trust’s habitats.

1 Night Camera Trap Uk £ 199 only!

*As part of the donation the Milgis Trust would be proud to issue you with regular prints or digital copies of the very best photos that your donated camera has captured*

No responses yet

Category: Northern Frontier District, Samburu, elephants | Date: Oct 14 2009 | By: milgistrust

Unbelievable!!… One day it was cloudy all over and raining , next day.. 11 October, not a cloud in the sky, for as far as the eye can see, but it is very very clear, which is a good sign, so we think that it will be back just after the new moon… We quite often call this first rain the grass rains, and then the main rains should follow… We had 8 mm on the 9th October, and 15 mm on the 10th, at the Milgis Base… So this is ‘not to sniff at’ and the whole place is beginning to burst into green, and with in a few days the flowers will start popping out… The Seiya Lugga is still flowing, so the news is still good from Northern Kenya!!…..

Picture of Mt Kenya, taken on a clear day from Elkanto… 110 Kms away.. Very unusual to see this far!, and so clear…

I’d like to think as I write this, that there are several baby elephants lolling around in the water that is still flowing… They don’t get this luxury too often, so lets hope they are all having fun!! What do you think Mark!!… Shall we whip back out there to catch it on film!!..

Thanks for all the wonderful positive comments, all of you, and for the good wishes for the brave Samburu people, who have lost so much during this drought, and with the rains arriving will lose more, sadly…Thats how it goes, I’m afraid.. BUT…They are good recoverer’s from disasters, and will be generous with each other, to get them selves back on the road…

One response so far

Category: Milgis lugga, Northern Frontier District | Date: Sep 16 2009 | By: milgistrust

Yes we have had the most wonderful crop of fruit along the luggas, the Salvadora Persica, against all odds is fruiting furiously.. Another of natures amazing rescue packets just when things looked really bad… As you walk through the Salvadora, the bird song is deafening, the baboons are all talking, Every one is eating Salvadora fruit!!….Wish I could play the sounds, as I took these two photographs.. The first picture was meant to be of a bird , but it flew away!, so I had to settle with Lentokunye gorging on fruit, while out on a patrol!!…

Salvadora fruit.. It has a very peppery taste to it…

‘Breakfast’ in the Milgis!

Not only have we received this beautiful fruit but also a wind fall of donations, from 3 kind people… I THANK Phillipp, Wanda, and Anna… for being so generous this time… and would like to assure you all again that every donation is so much appreciated.. What can we say but thank you a million….

I am off to do some filming ‘Elephants and Samburu’, and their life together, down on the Milgis for the next two weeks, should be very interesting…..

Finally, I was sleeping under the stars on the last full moon, and woke up in the middle of the night to this wonderful sight.. The planet is Jupiter!! The ring was gone about ten minutes later… This has got to be bringing us good news!

I reckon this is a good sign… FOR LOTS OF RAIN!?

2 responses so far

Category: Eco-tourism, Health, Northern Frontier District | Date: Jun 23 2009 | By: milgistrust

We are all conservationists , us lot who write the blogs and our readers!, but I can see we are divided, about SNAKES!!..Thanks so much for every ones nice ‘ good recovery’ comments to Pete!… Actually he is back in hospital, as now the secondary infection which we have been warned about is coming out.. Abscesses, but we hope to have that under control soon, and get on to the ‘home strait soon’… Ay, Ay, Ay…The moral of the story is don’t get bitten by a snake! We all know that but as Anna hopes, and I hope!!, it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time… But Anna, I thought two wrongs made a right!?? To be positive the Right of this is we’ve all learnt abit more, and all your comments are adding to our experience…But Sheryl, when you come to Africa, if I’ve made 48 years with out even a threat from a snake, don’t worry!!.. I’ll send a Samburu into the shower with you with his ‘rungu’ because after two days here we won’t beable to live with you!!!

Our trip to the doc., turned out to be a ‘funny’ story, now at least, as Pete has got over it, and the doc apologised!! We had been told that if there are any signs of soft swellings etc to go and see a doctor…So we make an appointment, and head to Nanyuki Cottage hospital, Dr Butt is an expert on snake bite, but as we are getting out of the car we get a phone call that don’t bother to come unfortunately there has been two emergencies, and he can’t see you, but we persevered and waited, and we were told 2 hours and he will be with you… Good news.. !! But suddenly, 15 minutes before our ‘D’ time a vehicle comes racing in at high speed..There was guy who had been shot, so we were told sorry but you’ll have to come back tomorrow.. Luckily the head nurse had seen Pete, and she told the doctor… Sorry please give Pete 5 minutes… When he saw Pete’s ankle, he now realised he had two more emergencies, but the operating theatre was already occupied.. The doc made a quick decision, and Pete had to endure a ‘bush type op.!’as if he had left it any longer, it would turned into septicaemia… Pete nearly expired!.. But he survived to tell the tale, and today he is feeling so much better!!..

Bob, actually probably the snake expert of all of us!… glad you saw my blog, actually was going to contact you on this experience, when you update your book, you must ask Wamba hospital, about all the various, esp.red spitter bites they deal with.. While we were there was a woman who was bitten on her finger, and they actually brought the snake in for identification!… On our part, at 3 am with Pete there was no sign of panic, or surprise they went about getting the Fav-Afrique anti-venom, into Pete as soon as possible!!… Two weeks before two children sleeping in the same bed, one was bitten on the cheek, pretty big reaction, the other one was bitten on the forehead,.. no reaction at all .. obviously all the venom had gone into the first, one!.. Both cases were lucky to be close to Wamba!.. That Rendille kid was pretty lucky to find you!.. The good news!!, as most of us conservationists believe… is really, snakes are usually heading in the opposite direction, and don’t want to know… What is strange about this incident is… The snake came from the out side.. he was not cornered, Pete actually was, although he did not know it, until it was too late.. !! Wrong place at wrong time!!.. or what??

4 responses so far

Category: Health, Northern Frontier District | Date: Jun 20 2009 | By: milgistrust

You may be wondering ‘why the silence’, on my part… No blogs, but this ordeal ‘got’ to me thats for sure!!… Imagine this situation!!… Friday 5th June 9.30 pm, we are at Elkanto.. miles from nowhere.. We were meant be leaving on a dream safari to climb over the Ndoto Mountains… But it wasn’t to be.. Pete Ilsley, my partner and a trustee of the Milgis Trust, had just finished his open air shower, standing there drying his back, when he feels a tap on his leg, and then a second tap… Its full moon, but his leg is in the shadows, and he can’t see what it is, so he finds his torch, thinking it may be a big cricket or something else like that, thats landed on his leg!! Not a man to panic, as sometimes brushing things off your self can be more dangerous…. BUT Ha Ha… It was a five foot copper coloured collared spitting cobra, literally chewing on his leg…

This is a juvenile copper coloured spitting cobra… Not the one that got Pete!

A sight he will never forget!!.. Unbelievably frightening, he hit it hard with his towel twice before he let go… He shouted ‘Helen, Helen I’ve been bitten by a snake… ‘ By this time, I was fast a sleep, I was really tired… but the moment I saw the bite marks I knew there was no more sleep to be had, and that we had to move fast !!.. OUR NIGHT MARE HAD BEGUN!.. The most important thing is not to panic! … I was given some BLACK STONES 25 years ago, by a Belgian guy who came on safari… I have carried them on every single trip since then and never used them!….. So the first thing I did was cut through the bite marks to make them bleed, and stuck the black stone on both bites… Do they work?? We believe they do!! many people are divided, from absolutely NOT, don’t know, and they DO work… We are definitely in the ‘believe in them’ category, after what we went through!!.. All the Samburu ran to help, and we made a decision that we had to get to a hospital, AS QUICK AS POSSIBLE!.. So ten guys picked him up in a blanket, and headed down the mountain side to the vehicle… We wrapped the whole leg in crepe bandages to try to stem the flow of poison to the rest of the body… and we set off… The excruciating pain that followed, was like somebody peeling off his skin, and rubbing salt in… It is only 91.5 kms to Wamba Hospital, but it took us five and a half hours of hell, to get there…there is hardly a road to start with, and the part of the road that exists was badly washed away, in the last rains… Not this year!! Pete was complaining of unbelievable pain in his stomach, which we later found out was the poison [enzymes] literally digesting Pete’s insides… 3 am we eventually arrive and Pete tells me he can taste blood in his mouth… Wamba hospital can take full credit for saving Pete’s life, but it was a battle, also to get the pain under control, and eventually they ‘knocked him out’… Luckily he knew nothing until Sunday morning… But we had a very worrying Saturday…

I am so sad this has happened…I LOVE those snakes.. I have lived side by side with them all these years, why did this one get so angry. It was not cornered, was it chasing a mouse, or looking for water, or just crazy with humans, and all that we are doing to destroy our world?? I was born and brought up living in the bush, I enjoy it so much because it is not possible to get lonely, as there is always something around , be it a lizard, mouse, snake, bird, dikdik, cricket, scorpion, hyena, Genet cat what ever… all the beautiful things that live in the bush, and now I feel let down… Now every one tells me you can not live with snakes??… Two weeks later Pete is doing well.. sounds like hes a snake hater now!!.. and I don’t blame him.. He still has a very swollen foot, and who knows which way it will go, but amazingly no necrosis, which we were warned of… I think that was because of the BLACK STONE!

11 responses so far

Category: Northern Frontier District | Date: May 29 2009 | By: milgistrust

In all those 100s and 1000s of acres of land, why does this spot get a signal!..

A busy moment in the office…

Sending an email from miles away from no where! Or trying as my last blog tells you!

No responses yet

Category: Northern Frontier District | Date: May 28 2009 | By: milgistrust

Now you know why the blogging can be a touch sporadic!!… We left Elkanto at 5.30 am, for our jaunt up this hill, armed with mobile phones, and computers to climb 1600 feet higher than the surrounding area to get a signal… Its over1000 feet higher than Elkanto!! We went to see if we could send our emails, and our blogs from here as we are finding the satellite phone abit expensive!…Just recently Safari com, a mobile phone company, put a mast up at Baragoi, and this is the only place one can get a signal around here!!..

The View from the telephone booth!.. Up to the right is the radio hill, and down in the valley is Elkanto with the Matthews Range behind…. This is Lesoloyia trying to send a blog!!! Just in this 4 meter patch is where we should get a signal……

Nobody was lucky this day except the woman who was so happy to hear her son in Mombasa!!… She had come 20 kilometres to make this call… None of us got through!..Hey we walked along way as well..?. We were told by Lolokuria, the man standing on the left, who is one of the radio operators for the Milgis Trust that if its windy it works better… We didn’t wait for it to get windy, as we had a long walk home, and a long climb at the end in the heat of the day…

Stella is trying to send an email, Pete is holding the modem up, in one hand while he trys to make some phone calls himself… Stella is feeling a little crowded, shes got three dogs crowding her in the only bit of shade… The shade is just a few branches that have been cut and and balanced over these bushes! She reckons its better than the concrete jungle [Blog April 18th]she used to work in!!

This woman is speaking to her son in Mombasa.. She prefers to have the phone on ‘loud speaker’, as she can’t handle it next her ear… She is getting good news from Mombasa, that it is raining!… She wants her son to know that things are not so well, at home… The goats are sick, and theres nothing for them to eat… And water is difficult.. But other wise we are fine!… Samburu people are never miserable or negative about a situation like this… The harder the times the tougher they get!!

One response so far

Category: Cheetahs, Conservation Awareness, Education, Leopards, Lions, Livestock, Northern Frontier District, Samburu | Date: Jan 19 2009 | By: milgistrust

Its a difficult one when you tell the nomadic people… Do not kill the predators…. For them, if there was no predators life would be so much simpler!!… They could just send the goats/cows off and round them up when they are ready! They would not need to make such good bomas [thorn fences] around their homes, in fact life would be a lot easier with out them…They wouldn’t get into the perpetual trouble they get into because they have to cut trees down to make a decent fence!… OF COURSE THIS IS NOT EVEN A THINKABLE OPTION!!… SO ..What is the solution??!! Imagine a world with out the king of the jungle, cheetahs, leopards, Hyenas… and all the other unbelievably beautiful carnivores on this earth… We at Elkanto are experiencing the incredibleness of these animals with our cheetah… He never ceases to amaze all of us… Its a tough little critter… VERY clever, so aware, tough as nails… Despite its sweet ‘look’ !! Luckily the Samburu have to have lions, because they CANNOT have a ceremony with out a piece of lion skin!… Also If there was no predators then there would too much competition with the stock for grass, with the herbivores… And finally if there was no predators who would get rid of the rotting carcases… So really the answer is to find ways of living with them!!… Dogs and Live fences being two answers…??

A dog that is well looked after is one of the best answers.. Their acute sense of smell, and hearing can pick up predators from far, and warn the manyatta… Or when the stock are out grazing/browsing the dogs can warn the Shepperd’s when there is trouble up front…Every manyatta has a dog, or many, but most of them are desperately thin, worms and being erratically fed is the reason.. Samburu have this terrible fear of rabies, and this is why this poor dog was killed.. story below.. Also when there is a batch of puppies, the females are almost always left to die, only because they later will produce puppies…

Yesterday a Samburu man, somebody I know well, came to see me with his 4 year old daughter… She had a little scratch on her side, from his dog… She had picked up the after birth of a goat to give to him and he had snatched it off her, and scratched her on her side.. The father immediately killed the dog..bludgeoned him to death… His favourite dog… So sad and so stupid… Because now who is going to look after the manyatta??

So we would like to do a “get the dogs in better shape campaign” to help the people live with the predators… This would mean castrating and spaying dogs, worming and giving rabies injections… And giving a little’pep’ talk on how to look after them…To as many dogs in the area… It would be an ongoing thing as its vast… Is any vet out there ready to gain some pretty exciting experience!! .. It won’t be dogs only you treat!!.. Any thing from an Elephant to a squirrel!! , Camel to a goat! as well… We also need to find a way to fund it …..ANY IDEAS?

5 responses so far

Category: Milgis lugga, Northern Frontier District, Samburu | Date: Jan 16 2009 | By: milgistrust

Yesterday evening was quite exciting…A wild evening!!

Not so typical of Elgerei, the Samburu name for the Milgis Lugga, a place full of dramatic surprises. At about 5.30 pm looking to wards the east there seemed to be a very strange brown look to the sky, and soon it became clear it was a very strong wind coming in from the Kaisut desert, bringing with it the most incredible amount of dust… It came slowly but surely up the Milgis lugga, and spread out to wards the Matthews and Ndotos.. The sight was amazing, beautiful colours, and suddenly we are all most in the dark!..

The dust was so thick we’ve all got sore throats today!!… In the morning there was a thin coat of dust on all the surfaces, which the Samburu told me not to clean as its bad luck… If I leave it, it will rain!… Well… they are not wrong… because today has turned into a cold after noon, with rain all around!!… FANTASTIC NEWS… The full moon did it!…. There is alot of warriors wandering around singing at the top of their voices… true joy ringing through the hills at the sight of rain!!

3 responses so far