I am just back from the Mara and what an amazing time it is to be there! Our conservancies there, Olare Orok in the West and Ol Kinyei in the East are quickly becoming some the prime areas for wildlife viewing in the entire Mara ecosystem. This is a huge encouragement as the establishment of these conservancies is somewhat of a first in African conservation techniques. We are actually paying a per acre lease to local Maasai land owners for the use of their land which means essentially they are earning a regular income from letting their land go untouched. This means that wildlife is flooding back into these traditional dispersal areas because the wildlife feels safe. And the communities are the beneficiaries!

First I visited our Porini Lion Camp in Olare Orok Conservancy. Olare Orok means the Black Springs in Maa, the language of the Maasai, and is a prominent stream in the area. As the name of our camp indicates, this area is famous for its lions and we have been having regular viewing of our resident pride, the Moniko pride. This is a truly impressive pride with 22 members now. They are led by an excellent complement of prime females and a striking big male named Meno Moja, which means one tooth as he has an obvious broken canine. We found the pride walking across the plains in the early morning dew, much to the dismay of the Topi and zebra in the conservancy who were there to enjoy the newly greened grass. They snorted this disapproval but the lions kept moving towards the croton bushes where they would lay-up for the day.
We had an elephant die of natural causes in the conservancy recently and perhaps the largest gathering of hyenas that I have every noted was there to polish off the carcass. Our head guide, Jackson Saiyelel counted 50 hyenas in one sitting milling about, including some very cute, little black pups.
Because of the recent rains, things are quite green throughout the greater Mara area and this green grass has allowed game that sometimes is concentrated in the reserve, to enjoy the dispersal areas of the conservancies. As I moved across the area to the east, I came to our Ol Kinyei conservancy to find wildebeest dropping their calves on the short grass plains. It is truly fascinating to watch as the wobbly little calves try and keep up with their mothers. Of course the full complement of predators was also on hand. Ol Kinyei conservancy is named after a type of tree of the same name in Maa. We call it Euclea divinorum or Diamond -leaved euclea in English. It is in the Ebony family although it does not have the black core that we often associate with ebony. In our conservancy there is large amount of this shrub and it is a favourite with large game such as buffalo and elephant. As I entered Ol Kinyei I saw a beautiful family of elephants moving slowly from bush to bush with their trunks wrapping and tugging at the tough stems and leaves. There are also buffalo galore and I counted at least 200 in four different groups, the largest of which numbered over 80 animals!

We have had recent sightings of a very large male leopard that now lives in the Ol Kinyei and he has been proving that he is not shy with several of our clients having had very good chances to observe him on a kill. There is also a female around with a new young cub, which is always exciting. Leopards, although often hard to see are the most successful of the cats.

The Olaiburmut pride of lions were out and looking to be in prime shape as I found them sitting on the hill that evening. They have been joined in the last few months by at least 4 new litters of cubs bringing the total in the pride to 18. The fact that large cats and other mammals are giving birth in the conservancies is evidence of the feeling of security, which they seem to be enjoying. This is encouraging to us and we hope will also be perceived as a good thing by the communities that we rent the land from. Ultimately, as the reputation for good game viewing and conservation in these conservancies grow, more guests will be able to enjoy them and thus enable us to keep renting the land, and helping the communities to enjoy the benefits of conservation. We hope that each of you will be able to come and see what we are doing and let us host you in one of, what surely must be, the most beautiful places on earth.

Amboseli Porini Camp - Night visitors

We have been having a lot of night visitors to our camps and it is really exciting to think that the game have been able to move freely in and out of the areas we have built our camps in. I believe that is in part at least to the fact that we have had minimal impact on the areas in which they used to roam and that they still want to be there.

We have had lion in camp recently at Amboseli and many of our other camps have had leopard, elephant and hippo. We wanted to be able to catch some of our night visitors on camera and so our managing director, Jake, decided to get a stealthcam, which is a remote camera which takes a picture at night when it detects movement. After several attempts at setting it up and a few pictures of ourselves looking like the "deer in the headlights" we managed to get the hang of it. This image of the rarely seen and even more rarely photographed African Civet cat is a great reminder of the richness of the animal world around us, even at midnight!

Welcome!

Hello to All of you who have found this site and have an interest in what Porini Camps and Gamewatchers Safaris are doing in Kenya!
My name is Bryan Adkins and I am the Operations Manager along with my wife Angie, for Gamewatchers Safaris/Porini Camps. We wanted to start this blog to help people know what is going on on the ground level here in Kenya, with communities, wildlife and the conservation efforts spearheaded by companies like Gamewatchers Safaris. Many of you who have visited Porini Camps understand the delicate balance that we try to achieve by helping communities earn direct benefits from their land and making room for wildlife. In addition, we provide much needed employment in communities that have often been neglected in the mainstream economy.
We also know that without tourism, this ideal of being able to give communities a fair price for renting their land, would not be achieved. We thank you for your continued support and hope to see you back in Kenya soon!
As you know, last year was a disaster for Kenya with a double blow of post election violence and the broad reaching financial crunch. This year we are rebuilding business and trying to maintain the benefits we are able to pass on to communities. It is an uphill road but one we are confident, with your help, that we will be able to overcome.

What we hope to do with this blog is keep you up to date on the successes and failures we see, the return of wildlife to once degraded areas, pictures, the communities we work with and the many characters you have come to know or will come to know, when you come on safari with us!

Best Regards,

Bryan