travel – Page 28 – Moonlion Safaris

False killer whales recorded first time in Kenya in December 2016. They are witha pod of Indo-Pacific botlenose dolphins.

Whales in Watamu

Published on January 14, 2017 by Rupi MangatLeave a comment

Watamu Marine Association and Kenya Wildlife Service report an amazing sigh for the first time ever.

Picture above: False killer whales recorded first time in Kenya in December 2016.
They are witha pod of Indo-Pacific botlenose dolphins. Courtesy Jane Spilsbury/Watamu Marine Association

Published: Satmag Nation 14 Jan 2017

The gorgeous blue-ocean waters of Watamu reveal the first ever sighting in Kenya of False killer whales during a survey carried out by team from Kenya Wildlife Service and the Watamu Marine Association. The excitement is far-reaching.

“False killer whales are similar to Killer whales but smaller,” says a very excited Jane Spilsbury of WMA. “We were about two kilometres from shore when we saw these animals which are normally found in much deeper water.

False killer whales off Watamu, Kenya November 2016. Courtesy Jane Spilsbury/Watamu Marine Association

She continues. “These 13 to 19 feet long animals were hunting in a group of 50 – 100 and were accompanied by Indo Pacific Bottlenose dolphins. For an hour that we watched them the whales covered an area of over three square kilometers hunting sailfish.

“This shows that the Malindi Watamu Marine Protected Area has a rich biodiversity to attract such a rarely documented, data deficient species and also why it is an important conservation area for dolphins and whales. We’re so excited!”

Hoping off the boat after a morning sail in Mida Creek landing by the village of Dabasso, I stop to chat with Spilsbury at Eco-World. I had no idea that wine bottles had more than one use as she shows me around the newly built resource centre at Eco-World.

Thousand bottle Bottle-nose dolphin by Andrew McNaughton at EcoWorld, Watamu Picture copyright Rupi Mangat

Recycled wine bottle door by Andrew McNaughton at EcoWorld, Watamu Picture by Rupi Mangat

Seahorse from trashed waste from sea – rubber slippera into gifts – at EcoWorld, Watamu Copyright picture: Rupi Mangat

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Diana Barr working with an Indian cobra. This beautiful snake is one of India's 'Big Four' and is responsible for thousands of deaths every year in India. Rupi Mangat Read

Women in a Venomous Field

Published on January 7, 2017February 19, 2017 by Rupi Mangat1 Comment

Four amazing women make a career of working with snakes. Attending the tenth international snakebite seminar at Bio-Ken snake farm in Watamu recently, each narrates the path taken.

East African 7-13 Jan 2017

Handling live venomous snakes is an extra-ordinary noble but extremely dangerous profession.

One reason for handling venomous snakes is to milk them – which is the only way to obtain snake venom to produce supplies of anti-venom. Without anti-venom being readily available and administered, a bite from any venomous snake can be deadly. Ironically, anti-venom can only be produced from ample supplies of venom from live venomous snakes. And it takes some dexterity to do that.

Diana Barr

Diana Barr keeping a keen eye on her students as they perform venom extraction from a Papuan taipan under her instruction at the Charles Campbell Toxinology Centre in Papua New Guinea. (Left: Owen Paiva, right Benjamin Wawagu Bande). The venom is sent to the Instituto Clodomiro Picado in Costa Rica where it is used to produce lifesaving antivenom. This highly venomous snake has a nervous temperament which coupled with its speed and agility make it an extremely dangerous snake to work with. It is responsible for around one thousand deaths per year in Papua New Guinea. Picture courtesy: Barr

Diana Barr working with an Indian cobra. This beautiful snake is one of India’s ‘Big Four’ and is responsible for thousands of deaths every year in India. Picture courtesy: Barr

Young and dynamic, Barr’s job as technical support officer at the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne and Global Snakebite Initiative, an Australian non-profit organisation working to reduce snakebite deaths and disability around the world, puts her in very close contact with the most venomous snakes in the world.

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Nancy Njeri and Kyle Ray - profesional snake handlers at Bio-Ken Snake Farm Watamu, Kenya

Bio-Ken Snake Farm in Watamu

Published on January 7, 2017January 7, 2017 by Rupi MangatLeave a comment

Learning about the Reptilian World of Snakes and Scorpions

Main picture: Nancy Njeri and Kyle Ray – profesional snake handlers at Bio-Ken Snake Farm Watamu, Kenya

A gorgeous tropical blue snake is twined around a twig. It’s a speckled bush snake and not venomous. Nancy Njeri, the professional snake handler is giving the grand tour of the snake farm that was started in 1980 by the late and very amazing James Ashe and his wife Sanda. Sanda still handles the snakes and other injured animals and return them to the wild. She has the reputation of being the finest snake-handler – especially the venomous green mamba.

Njeri on the other hand is working her way up to the gold-level –when she will be allowed to handle the really venomous snakes like black mambas – alone.

“Speckled bush snakes come indifferent colours,” tells the young woman and continues to take us around, giving tit-bits about the reptiles in residence. “This is the twig snake,” she points to another thin, long snake that really looks like the paler cousin of the speckled bush snake only that as Njeri tells us, it is a venomous snake that has no antivenom manufactured for its bite. I’d hate to be bitten by this one (or any other) as it means going to hospital for a blood transfusion.

“Anyway,” continues the young woman nonchalantly, “snakes don’t bite to kill. They bite to defend themselves.”

That’s so nice to know.

Winnie Bore - activist and founder of Snakebite-Kenya - http://www.snabirc-kenya.org/ to provide anti-venom in rural areas, help rehabilitate victims disabled or visually impaired by snakebites and develop a research programme simply because there is very little information on snakebites in Kenya. — Winnie Bore – activist and founder of Snakebite-Kenya – http://www.snabirc-kenya.org/ to provide anti-venom in rural areas, help rehabilitate victims disabled or visually impaired by snakebites and develop a research programme simply because there is very little information on snakebites in Kenya. Copyright picture Rupi Mangat

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Elephant crossing under the bridge of the new SGR crossing point.

The Train and Tuskers of Tsavo

Published on January 4, 2017 by Rupi Mangat1 Comment

The impact of the SGR on the mega-herbivore in the last of its stronghold – the mighty Tsavo

Published The East African Nation media -31 Dec 2016-6Jan 2017

Caption above – Elephant crossing under the bridge of the new SGR crossing point.by Limo Elisha

Under the searing sun of the Tsavo East National Park, a herd of elephants as red as the soil browse near the newly constructed standard gauge railway cutting across the 13,747 square kilometres park.

This section of the railway line near the park’s Manyani Gate is raised on a steep embankment to attain the gradient for the high-speed trains for the SGR. A 70-meter-wide and five-meter-high underpass in the embankment allows the mega herbivore to move to and fro from the adjoining 9,065-square-kilometer Tsavo West National Park – making the two parks the largest protected elephant park.

Until this steep embankment of the SGR was built a year ago, the elephants of Tsavo crossed the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway and the century-old railway line from anywhere they wished along the 137-kilometer span of the highway and rail that ran through the two parks.

An elephant crossing the old Meter gauge railway Copyright Limo Elsiha

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Nairobi National Park

Published on January 4, 2017January 4, 2017 by Rupi MangatLeave a comment

Celebrates 70 years

Publsihed Nation Saturday Magazine 31 December 2016

A saffron sunrise announces another dawn in a city that’s fast changing face into a vertical cosmo. Amidst this high-rise landscape, Nairobi’s iconic national park by the same name celebrates its 70^th anniversary and we’re in this natural world that only Nairobi can boast of.

Past the dam with a lone hippo that shies in it, we continue to the forest where a Crowned eagle perches on a tall tree. Generations of this mighty raptor have nested in the park – by a tree on the edge of Langata Road. Whereas our Crowned eagle still holds its territory supreme, the Malagasy crowned eagle became extinct as humans wiped them out in Madagascar.