Motorcycles speed ranger response in Kenya

Motorcycles have put real power in the hands of wildlife rangers protecting Kenya’s largest and most significant wildlife and elephant habitat—the 43,000-square kilometer Tsavo Conservation Area (TCA), comprising the Tsavo Parks, group ranches, and wildlife conservancies.

The TCA provides a secure space for Kenya’s endangered savannah elephants to roam during droughts within the Tsavo ecosystem.

While better law enforcement and protection have significantly increased elephant populations—from a low of 5,400 in 1988, when they teetered on the brink of extinction globally, to the current 16,000 elephants in Tsavo—climate change has, in recent years, emerged as a deadly, multi-faced threat for these ranches and conservancies.

The Central or Kisigau wildlife migration corridor, which links Tsavo East and West Parks, has come under threat as extended droughts reduce food security and increase poverty in neighboring communities reliant on subsistence farming. This has led communities to unlawfully exploit natural resources in many ways, including illegal hunting for bushmeat on nearby ranches and conservancies.

Faster mobility for wildlife rangers

Motorcycles drastically cut response times of wildlife rangers in their mission to combat wildlife crime, protect elephants and other wildlife, and safeguard communities in the TCA.

IFAW’s donation of 20 motorcycles, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has significantly improved the governance of the community-owned ranches and wildlife conservancies managed by the Taita Taveta Wildlife Conservancies Association (TTWCA). The motorbikes were donated to rangers protecting Kutima Ranch (soon to be merged to Choke Ranch to create a 25,000-acre wildlife conservancy) to enhance security patrols.

According to Robert Kitau, a natural resources graduate and manager of Kutima Ranch, illegal activities, such as commercial logging or felling trees for charcoal burning, are destroying habitats and worsening the crisis.

“Communities are driven to desperation by the drought and impacts of climate change, leading them to activities that destroy habitats and worsen the crisis,” Kitau says. “In the long term, this affects both the community and Tsavo elephants that depend on these spaces even more. “The motorbikes have greatly improved our patrol efforts, helping us cover wider and otherwise inaccessible areas with more frequency, intensity, and consistency. This has boosted our security presence on the ranch and surrounding areas to deter illegal activities.”

Better ranger welfare and morale

As an example, Kitau cites a joint force patrol conducted by rangers from the ranches, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), and local conservation partners, during which 16 snares were destroyed. Five days later, they arrested two suspects with the bushmeat during a nighttime ambush.

Head game ranger James Atukutan, who coordinates security operations on both Choke and Kutima ranches, says the motorbikes have improved staff welfare and morale and the working environment for the eight rangers who protect the ranches.

“Poaching was rife, and charcoal burning and illegal logging [were] rampant on the two ranches because we were patrolling 25,000 acres on foot,” he explains. “What would have been a two-hour response to a security or human-wildlife conflict incident has now been reduced to minutes. Previously, we would get intelligence about a poaching incident, but the offender would be long gone when we arrived.”

Ranger Innocent Mwachofi says before the motorbikes arrived, a typical working day involved setting off at 8 a.m. and trekking for up to six hours in stifling heat to investigate or deal with an issue on one corner of the ranch before trudging back to base.

In comparison, he describes a more recent incident where four rangers on an anti-poaching mission found themselves outnumbered in a dangerous area. It took only a radio call for motorbikes to come roaring through the bushes with a backup team of rangers. The bushmeat hunters were arrested, prosecuted, and jailed. 

Project officer Philip Mwang’ombe, who manages the 96,000-acre Taita Ranch and Wildlife Conservancy, says the motorbikes have enabled him to open new ranger outposts and patrol areas of the vast ranch that were previously uncovered. They have improved intelligence gathering because they are less visible than vehicles and provide ranger security to tourists who cycle across the farm. 

Active participants in landscape management

In addition to helping deter illegal activities, motorbikes have brought additional benefits. There are incidents where they have saved lives and property through quicker response to human-elephant conflicts and evacuating sick or injured rangers and community members to hospitals from remote areas that vehicles wouldn’t otherwise access. They have expanded the scope and functions of rangers, allowing them to provide necessary data upon which critical conservancy management decisions are made.

“Rangers now patrol more expansive areas and, in the process, collect and record ecological data, such as wildlife distribution and abundance within and outside the ranch, predation on livestock, and human-wildlife conflict incidents, on a mobile phone app,” Mwang’ombe says. “This information helps us make quicker and more informed management decisions when logged into a spatial mapping and reporting tool.

“Now we can implement livestock grazing plans to minimize predation because we have identified the breeding zones for lions and the precise location of resident lions. We also know which animals are outside the protected area and susceptible to poaching.” says Mwang’ombe adding that the motorcycles put the rangers in a better position to warn the community, alert KWS rangers to respond to impending human-wildlife conflict incidents, and provide data on wildlife sightings that could improve tourism prospects in the landscape.