Author: Rupi Mangat

2013 Ecotourism Journalist of the Year (Ecotourism Society of Kenya) | Editor, Komba Magazine (Wildlife Clubs of Kenya) | Contributor, The East African and Saturday Magazine (Nation)
Lappet-faced vulture with Tawny eagle in Tsavo West National Park at Lake Jipe on the Kenya-Tanzania border Copyright Luca Borghesio

Jaunt at Jipe

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With an amazing raptor-filled day in Tsavo West

Published Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper 22 April 2017

Above: Lappet-faced vulture with Tawny eagle in Tsavo West National Park at Lake Jipe on the Kenya-Tanzania border
Copyright Rupi Mangat

Aeriel view of Grogan's Castle with Kilimanjaro Copyright Grogan's Castle
Aeriel view of Grogan’s Castle with Kilimanjaro Copyright Grogan’s Castle

The road from Grogan’s Castle is a long thin thread through a bush-filled veld of Prosopis juliflora, one of the most terrible invasive plants in the world. These water-suckers compete for water with indigenous species and are so aggressive that one was found with roots at 175 feet deep in the earth.

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Aeriel view of Grogan's Castle with Kilimanjaro Copyright Grogan's Castle

Musing at Grogan’s Castle

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Aeriel view of Grogan’s Castle with Kilimanjaro
Copyright Grogan’s Castle

Published Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper 15 April 2017

He couldn’t have chosen a better spot to build his castle.

Grogan’s Castle – at the entrance overlooking the plains of Taveta and Tsavo Copyright Grogan’s Castle
Outside Grogan’s room – sunset on Kilimanjaro Copyright Grogan’s Castle

In the first light of the day the 360-degree panorama from Grogan’s Castle is dramatic – with the two ice-clad peaks – Mawenzi and Kibo – of Kilimanjaro from the veranda of the legendary maverick – Grogan himself.

Grogan’s bed – he really did sleep in it. Copyright Rupi Mangat
Grogan’s bedroom – best room in the castle with fantastic panorame of Taveta plains and north Pare mountains – Copyright Rupi Mangat

In my mind’s eye l can see him hoping off his eccentric bed – a flat metal sheet bolted against the wall and encased in a wire cage – nothing frivolous about it – and taking in the grandeur of it all – the Pare mountains in Tanzania that are part of the Eastern Arc Mountains stretching from Kenya’s Taita Hill to Tanzania’s legendary Usambara’s and more. Circling around, his eye would have taken in the shimmer of Jipe, the lake on the foothills of the Pare and shared between Kenya and Tanzania and then the wilderness of Tsavo.

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Guereza colobus or mantled colobus - monkeys of the old forest. They rarely come down to earth and feed mostly on leaves. Picture courtesy: Kat Combes,Soysambu Conservancy

Fundraising for Pre-translocation ecological assessment of Mount Kenya Guereza and the habitats of Soysambu Conservancy, Kenya

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April 8, 2017

This April 8, 2017 Pre-translocation ecological assessment of Mount Kenya Guereza and the habitats of Soysambu Conservancy. resulted in an accelerated human-guereza conflict as the groups crop raid to supplement the meager wild food.

To save this population, 142 individuals were successfully translocated to Karura forest in 2016 and over 200 individuals still remain in the fragmented private riverine habitats of Kipipiri. Urgent translocation efforts are therefore, required to safe these groups from being exterminated in the near future. Such an effort however, requires identification of a suitable habitat with enough food, cover, security and away from human habitation and especially the agricultural community to minimize human-colobus conflicts in the sink habitat.

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