In cheetah’s eyes, you will see, ‘help me’
Mr. Yao Ming (R) a retired Chinese professional basketball player scrubs a cheetah at the Kenya National Park on 16 August 2012. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
- Wykstra came to Kenya from Namibia in 2001 to assess the status and threats to cheetahs inside and outside protected areas in the country, then working alongside the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF).
- Years later, research on the cheetahs in the country by Action for Cheetahs in Kenya (ACK), which Wykstra founded, and other conservation groups, has found that the feline exists in unusual habitats and is under threat due to landscape loss.
In conservationist Mary Wykstra’s notebook from years ago, a scribbled line about the cheetah reads: “To look into the eyes of a cheetah… shows a history unknown to man.”
“I don’t know who the author of the line is,” said Wykstra. “But when I look into the eyes of a cheetah, it’s like they are saying, ‘help me.’”
Wykstra came to Kenya from Namibia in 2001 to assess the status and threats to cheetahs inside and outside protected areas in the country, then working alongside the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF).
Years later, research on the cheetahs in the country by Action for Cheetahs in Kenya (ACK), which Wykstra founded, and other conservation groups, has found that the feline exists in unusual habitats and is under threat due to landscape loss.
“Eighty per cent of cheetahs live outside protected areas based on a 2004-2007 National Cheetah Survey carried out by ACK, the East African Wild Life Society and the Kenya Wildlife Service,” said Wykstra.
The 2007 survey put the cheetah population at between 1,000 and 1,400.
The survey showed a population of cheetahs in Laikipia and Machakos in north-central and eastern Kenya respectively. Machakos, 90 kilometres southeast of Nairobi, was one of the most unlikely places for cheetahs to be living.
“Here, there was a strong population of cheetahs co-existing in dense human population in unusual habitat,” said Wykstra. “It’s hilly, mostly farmland and scattered bush with a busy transnational highway cutting through it.
HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICT
Between 2007 and 2012, the Aimi and Malili Ranches and Kima Estate in Machakos were sub-divided, cleared of forest and are now covered with iron sheet roofs.
Land subdivision resulted in increased human-wildlife conflict.
“The leopards, hyenas and cheetahs began moving to neighbouring areas like Ngaamba and Kiu, and human-wildlife conflict increased. It shows that if we don’t plan for natural resource management, there will be landscape loss all over Kenya,” said Wykstra.
She added: “It’s a vicious circle. The rural farmers in Makueni, for example, are given maize seeds, the rains are inadequate, the maize fails, then they are given fertilisers. Yet this land is not suitable for agriculture. Also, the bees are almost gone from the area because of the pesticides used.”
Wykstra says the irony is that Makueni County gets as much food aid as the dry northern districts.
“It’s clear that what they are doing is not sustainable,” said Wykstra.
The ACK team then expanded its study area to include the Athi-Kapiti ecosystem where the big commercial ranches are not likely to subdivide any time soon. Monitoring and camera-traps in the ranches have identified 25 cheetahs.
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