By Katheru Njagi
Nkoirienko, Kenya: The repeated roaring of a territorial lion as southern Kenya slid towards dawn almost scared away a guest from a nearby camp in Maasai Mara.
But were the lion near Mathew Ntaiya’s, home, he would have remained wide awake and armed all night ready to protect his sleeping livestock, just in case the big cat and its pride strayed into his home in Nkoirienko village.
It is for a good reason.
“We do not sleep here when we know predators like lions, hyenas, and leopards have been spotted. When these animals invade your homestead they can end up killing all your livestock,” says Ntaiya.
According to a 2019 report by ScienceDirect, human and wildlife population growth, changing land use, and climate change, are worsening human-wildlife conflicts in Kenya.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989419300903
While these conflicts are most intense during severe droughts in systems where communities, livestock, and wildlife share landscapes, they can occur in places where wildlife roam outside protected areas, says the report.
Data collected by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in southern Kenya between 2001 and 2017 and which was used in the report says 17.6 percent of all reported wildlife raids were carried out on livestock.
Leopards accounted for the most livestock kills at 7.3 percent followed by spotted hyenas at 5.8 percent, while lions’ attacks came last at 3.3 percent.
With painful flashes of anger, Ntaiya recalls a recent incident when a hyena sneaked into his home and killed 50 sheep. Even worse, communities lost hope of government help when such raids occur because they are never compensated for their losses.
“I did not report this case to the authorities because I knew nothing would be done, just like other families here started reporting their losses years ago but they have never been compensated,” he says.
One reason livestock have been vulnerable to wildlife attacks here is that their sleeping sheds have always been fenced with shrubs collected from the rangeland trees there.
Another is that most of the trees used for fencing have been depleted, leaving locals with nothing else to protect their livestock with, except to keep sentry all night.
A new innovation, however, which uses wire mesh fencing instead of shrubs, is helping hundreds of families protect their livestock from wildlife attacks, a process that is also reducing conflicts between humans and wildlife.
Known as predator-proof bomas, the innovation ringfences livestock inside 10 foot high wire mesh walls opening through a metallic door that is locked tight at night using state-of-the-art padlocks.
According to Dr. Martin Mulama, the southern Kenya landscape manager at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 90 predator-proof bomas, which are fixed and permanent, have been installed in southern Kenya.
An average of 30 predator-proof bomas has been installed in Maasai Mara, 30 in Amboseli, and another 30 in Tsavo.
“The livestock stay inside the predator-proof bomas at night because we realized that livestock is more vulnerable to predation at night. During the day they leave the bomas to go out for herding,” says Dr. Mulama.
Ntaiya, who is one of the beneficiaries of the innovation, says 10 villages in his Maasai Mara landscape have predator-proof bomas, which were installed in September 2021.
Apart from ensuring safety, he says, the innovation has reduced the cutting of the region’s rangelands, where the shrubs are used to fence the livestock sheds.
“I can now sleep well at night knowing my livestock is safe from wildlife attacks. I am also assured that my livestock is safe from cattle rustlers,” says Ntaiya.
Predator proof bomas are part of a larger conservation project WWF and partners are working on, covering the larger Mara, Tsavo, and Amboseli areas, in southern Kenya, according to WWF Chief Executive Officer, Mohamed Awer.
Funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ) at a cost of 2.5 million euros, it aims to conserve the rich biodiversity on southern Kenya and northern Tanzania’s savannah corridor. The corridor stretches from the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya all the way to the Indian Ocean to the east.
“It is a transboundary program. This area is ecologically connected where wildlife and communities interact on both sides of the border,” says Awer, adding that it will last for 10 years.
Meanwhile, Ntaiya would like more families facing the pressures of human-wildlife conflict to be served with predator-proof bomas. According to him, the peace he is experiencing is enabling him to focus on more productive and income-generating activities.
“I feel like a heavy burden has been lifted from my shoulders,” says Ntaiya.
