The Black Vault - Mixing people, wildlife can be best

MASAI MARA GAME RESERVE, Kenya (AP) -- Scanning the savanna with a pair of binoculars and a global positioning unit, biologist Robin Reid counts the number of zebra, giraffe and cows that graze in one of the world's most famous wildlife reserves.

Finished in one square block, she navigates her white Land Cruiser across the grass along an imaginary line into another grid square. Reid asks James Kaigil, a Maasai guide, to count a herd of wildebeest within 550 yards (500 meters) of the truck, while she counts the Thompson gazelles.

Kaigil calls down from the roof that he sees 134 of the prehistoric-looking grazers, while Reid jots down in her Compaq hand-held computer the 34 "Thommies" that she counted. She's now ready to guide the driver another 360 yards (328 meters) to count the next block.

Reid is the lead scientist in Mara Count 2002, one of the most ambitious attempts ever to inventory an ecosystem. Nineteen teams and two planes counted 23 species and classified the vegetation in an equally divided 965-square-mile (2,470-square-kilometer) area.

The results will create a database of 22,000 blocks, each measuring 1,083 feet (325 meters) by 1,083 feet (325 meters) and containing detailed information about what animals and vegetation can be found in them.

Scientists have counted animals over larger areas, but never in such detail, and never so many different species at one time, Reid said. The integration of local people into the project, staffed mostly by volunteers and financed by private donations, was a first for Kenya.

By plugging the iPaq computers into Garmin GPS units and then adding specially customized scientific software, the project also took advantage of cutting edge technology to address one of the most vexing problems facing Africans today: How can humans and wild animals live together?

Maasai tribe symbiosis
The Maasai tribe, which lend the Masai Mara reserve an alternative spelling of their name, have grazed their cattle among the wild animals for more than 3,000 years.

Initial results of Reid's earlier research, for the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute, indicates that instead of hurting the environment, the Maasai may actually be creating a symbiotic relationship that, when properly balanced, helps some wild animals thrive.

"The wildlife like short, green grass, not tall brown stuff where predators can hide," Reid said. "The Maasai cattle create that by grazing the land, and the Maasai themselves create it when they burn the old grass."

By counting and mapping the animals, Reid hopes to prove that the wildlife prefer areas where the grass has been grazed by cows, or burned -- a tradition the Maasai have carried out for centuries to spur fresh growth. Reid also is counting outside the park where even more wild animals live on communal land set aside for Maasai cattle grazing.

If confirmed, the results of her research could force wildlife managers and conservationists to rethink their assumptions about how to best protect the African savanna, especially now, when African governments have begun doing away with communal ownership of grazing areas and have started instituting individual ownership.

"We're finding that pastoral people are very important to managing these landscapes," Reid said. "In the West, we've had a philosophy of separating people from animals ... in the African landscapes that might not make sense."

The Mara reserve -- set aside for wildlife in 1961 and the tourism income earmarked for the Maasai -- makes up 6 percent of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. The Serengeti is the larger southern part of the ecosystem in Tanzania, while the northern part that crosses the border into Kenya is known as the Mara.

Kenya is home to another 19 percent of the ecosystem, which is protected by the communal land ownership tradition. Reid has found as many animals living outside the reserve as in, and that land use policies outside the reserve are just as important, if not more so, than those inside it.

The Mara is critical because it is the northern point on the great migration of animals that constantly circulate through the ecosystem in search of fresh grass.

Animal numbers drop, humans rise
Since the mid-1970s, the number of wildlife in the Mara has dropped by 60 percent. The human population around the reserve has more than doubled.

Ololtisatt ole Kamuaro, the tourism officer for the Narok County Council, said the community around the reserve, which depends on its income, is becoming aware that its financial future is linked to wildlife. He said Reid's data, once compiled, would be scrutinized to help tribal elders decide how best to manage the land.

"Counting animals was not a part of our existence," ole Kamuaro said. "But it's a functional element of wildlife management, and this study will give us challenging options."

If Reid's hypothesis is right, the Maasai may need to begin sending cows into the reserve and to set fires or somehow replicate more than 3,000 years of tradition, not to mention making sure that the surrounding privately owned land remains available to the animals.

Mike Rainey, a safari guide with 37 years in Kenya and a key partner in the animal count, said he considers the data gathered by the count to be critical, since too many land use decisions in Africa are based on opinion, not fact. The count will give people the facts.

"For the first time, we are looking at ecosystem complexity," he said. "What we've learned is that to capture the complexity to understand the process, you have to do it one eyeful at a time."

The land management debates and decisions in the Maasai Mara area reflect a growing problem for communities across East Africa, where elephants regularly destroy crops, leopards and lions kill cattle, and bat-eared foxes sneak into hen houses.

The result has been many dead animals and more than a few dead people every year. Reid's study, while only directly impacting the Maasai and their wildlife reserve, could spark a new way at looking how humans and animals can coexist.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/12/12/africa.wildlife.ap/index.html