When taking over CUWCS from the previous committee, we decided to change the focus of the society to more global conservation and a greater appreciation of local wildlife. This change is reflected in our beautiful new society logo, designed by our talented Social Media Officer, […]
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Conservation Newsletter 26/01/20
Here’s a roundup of some cool conservation pieces from the last month or so: News: Australian Bushfires The fires in Australia remained an important topic as the new year began. This article summarises a report that asked to what extent the fires had covered the ranges of […]
Conservation Newsletter 31/12/19
With the year coming to an end we wanted to round up a few of the biggest (or more accurately – our favourite) conservation news stories of 2019. 4. Missed Targets for 2020 For much of the last decade 2020 has been seen as a […]
Day 16: Into The Woods
For our second day in the Maasai Mara, Enoch was keen to show us something a little different. When you picture Kenya, dense woodland is probably not the first thing that springs to mind, and yet Kenya’s forest ecosystems are as vital to the sustenance […]
Conservation Newsletter 17/11/19
Here’s some of our favourite recent conservation stories, carefully picked out by Johanna: New Conservation Projects Aimed at Amphibians and Reptiles in Wales Over £400,000 of National Lottery funding has been allocated to the charity ARC Trust to protect Welsh herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles). The […]
Day 15: Where the Wild Things Are
Our first full day in the Maasai Mara began at 5:30am, because apparently that’s when the animals are most active. Weirdos. We yawned our way into the jeep, shivering in the chilly morning air and waiting for some of that famous African sun to show […]
Day 14: To the Mara!
In the early hours of Monday morning, on the fourteenth day of our trip, we left the relative comfort and familiarity of Kiboko Camp behind to set off on a week of travels to the Maasai Mara and beyond. Packing our bags and saying goodbye […]
Days 11-13: Farewell to Kiboko Camp (for now)
We spent the last few days of our second week conducting more interviews, monitoring the camera traps, and preparing for the next leg of our trip into Kenya’s Rift Valley region. Mandela had left earlier in the week to return to his job at a […]
Day 10: Lion Lights and Late Night Frights
We began our tenth day with a feast. Chris had been busy all morning whipping up a huge batch of mandazi, triangular pockets of fried pastry which taste of sugary warmth and are best eaten by the bucketload. The supply seemed to be limitless, and […]
Lights, camera… try again
We had something of a rocky start with our camera traps. On the morning of the wedding day, we made a foray out of the camp into the surrounding bushland, ready to get the cameras up and running so that we could start collecting data. […]
A week of community interviews
Having spent a few days getting to know the area and its wonderful cast of characters, the time had come to start conducting our interviews and learning about human-wildlife conflict. This issue, which forms a major part of Enoch’s research, is a significant challenge for […]
Day 5: Maasai Marriage
I had been feeling a little apprehensive about the community interviews that we were soon due to conduct. There was no doubt in my mind that everyone we spoke to would make us feel welcome, but I wanted to give them reason to like us, […]
Day 4: The Big Beasts of Nairobi
Today I kissed a giraffe, and I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoyed it. Remarkably, this wasn’t even the most exciting thing that happened on our fourth day in Kenya – the giraffe-smooching barely made the top five. We had a packed schedule, so […]
Day 3: Getting kitted up in Kitengela
I awoke on Thursday morning to find Impi grazing outside my window. Our eyes met in a moment of polite acknowledgement: she was having her breakfast, I was about to have mine. As we tucked into our omelettes and Impi munched on her grass, Enoch […]
Day 2: Welcome to Kiboko
My first night in Kenya certainly lived up to expectations – the whirring of mosquitoes sounded like it was coming from inside my skull, the local dogs barked with such gusto that I thought half the lions in Africa had descended on them, and I […]
Day 1: Here be lions (probably)
I hadn’t expected to see a zebra in the headlights within an hour of touching down in Nairobi – but, then again, I’m not sure what I should’ve been expecting, and our driver certainly seemed unfazed. Fortunately, so did the zebra. Eight hours ago, there […]
CUWCS-CUEX KENYA EXPEDITION 2017 – SIGNING OFF
The last leg of our expedition was to take place back in Nairobi, checking the results of the two week deployment of camera traps and preparing the project for long term functionality following our departure from Kenya. Following the long drive from Amboseli we were […]
Amboseli – Elephants, Schools, and Mt Kilimanjaro
The next stage of our journey was to take us to Amboseli National Park in Southern Kenya. The park and its surrounding area is famous for its elephants, with much of the key work on elephant behaviour developed through study of the Amboseli families. With […]
Kericho and Nakuru – Tea, Frogs, and Thunder Storms
After saying farewell to our French amis, we left the Maasai Mara. The many rocky roads (not the kind with marshmallows unfortunately) that lay ahead were no challenge for the TVTC (the van that can), a 1.8L, two wheel drive, monster of a van that […]
MAASAI MARA – LIKE THE LION KING, BUT WITH LIMITED ELTON JOHN
A new day, a new destination, and a new means of travel. We were met at the house by Isaac and his van, a vehicle capable of amazing feats, largely as a result of Isaac’s immense driving skills, later becoming referred to as simply ‘the […]
Niarobi – Maasai, Camera Traps, and Orphan Impala
The first component of the CUWCS-CUEX Kenya expedition 2017 was to take place in the Athi Kapiti plains. This area lies south of Nairobi National Park, providing the only migration corridor out of the park to the rest of Kenya with the Northern side of […]
CUWCS-CUEX Kenya Expedition 2017
In the early hours of the 6th of July three very fatigued members of the Cambridge University Wildlife Conservation Society (CUWCS) and Cambridge University Expedition Society (CUEX) touched down in windy Nairobi to embark on the CUWCS-CUEX Kenya expedition 2017. Battling through tedious visa forms […]
Magadi Camera Trap Images
These camera trap images are from 3 separate camera traps, deployed at different locations over the Ol Kirimatian/Shompole conservancy over a period of 5 days. All had both wildlife and livestock captured on them.
The Rift Valley Lakes: Nakuru, Baringo, Bogoria & the Kerio Valley
Leaving Magadi we once again faced a full day of driving across the length of Kenya to reach the shores of the lakes Nakuru, Baringo and Bogoria that would hold our attention for the next few days. As always such a day involved amazing views, […]
In Search of Lions and Love (Magadi-Shompole)
We left Enoch’s house at 7.30am, headed for Magadi, where the Lale’enok Resource Centre was located. It was to be our home for the next 6 days, and is a community based resource centre owned by the Maasai women of Olkiramatian and Shompole group ranches. […]
Athi-Kapiti
The journey back to Nairobi was predictably long, but not without its fair share of excitement and intrigue. The third female member of the group, like to play daisy slots and other casino games is now taking part in a new journey, Zheng, was sold […]
Samburu
As we drove to Samburu, the scenery was so different from what we had experienced in Kenya so far. It was so dry and everything looked so wild. When passing by a village, I was surprised by people’s clothes – so colourful and striking (I […]
Laikipia
As we drove through Mpala the team (minus Tom) were having a heated debate about whether the Grevy’s or Common Zebra could be seen as more attractive; at this point I realised my motives for signing up for this trip were different to these other […]
Maasai Mara Days 2-4
As the CUWCS team awoke on day two of our trip, after a short but good night’s sleep in our lovely guide Enoch’s house, we prepared ourselves for the 6 hour drive from Kitengela to the Maasai Mara. 13 long, long hours later (Mr Shah […]
Day One
Landing in Kenya was a shock to many of us. Leaving behind England in a heat wave, arriving to the chilly Nairobi morning made us question our packing of only t-shirts, shorts and copious amounts of sun cream. Having been met by our guide and host […]
Kenya pre-trip
We will be blogging right here about our trip to Kenya, where individuals will be visiting and working alongside conservation initiatives and local communities including the Maasai and Samburu, two pastoralist tribes that have historically co-existed with wildlife for hundreds of years. We will be […]