Next stop, the Mugie Conservancy located at the very western edge of the Laikipia plateau about 170 miles north of Nairobi, and essentially a logical stopover on our way to Samburu National Reserve.
The Mugie Conservancy is a 77-square mile private wildlife reserve. Almost half of the ranch is given over to the 34-square mile Mugie Sanctuary with big cats, elephants, Grevy’s zebras and endangered Jackson’s hartebeests. We didn’t see any cats or the hartebeest, but we did see lots of elephants and the Grevy’s zebra, which is a new species for me as they are found only north of this location. In the photo below, you can see the larger Grevy’s with the narrow stripes in the foreground and the common Plains zebra in the background. Funny to see these two species mixing it up:
The Conservancy used to have rhinos, but due to poaching pressures the remaining animals were moved off the ranch to a safer location. Like most of the conservancies, Mugie integrates wildlife conservation with ranching and agriculture, along with a variety of other income earning enterprises, such as commercial bee-keeping. Mugie has been proactive in their wildlife conservation efforts. For example, they are supposedly radio-tracking lions, cheetahs, and wild dogs to identify critical road-crossing points and corridors for animal movement. Overall, it’s great to see these community-based conservancies doing so much for wildlife conservation, because the reality is that protected public lands such as Parks and Reserves will never be enough to sustain populations of the larger animals.
Our campsite at Mugie was a large grassy opening overlooking a small reservoir. Fortunately, there was one nice shade tree for us to set up our kitchen and sitting area and there was a nice fire ring with seating space behind the tree:
A few of us did an evening wildlife drive the first night and hired a ranger guide for the excursion. The guide directed me (the driver) off road through the bush for an hour or so in an attempt to find a gps-collared lion. Driving through tall grass and scrub where you can’t see the ground, hoping you don’t drive into a hole, and weaving around and sometimes through the shrubs and trees is quite a genuine off-road safari experience. Despite following the gps to the exact location of the collared lion, we never saw it. The brush was thick and the lion was probably hunkered down under a bush a few feet from us.
The following day we took morning and evening drives through the conservancy, which produced very little in the way of wildlife other than elephants and small numbers of several other mammals and a variety of birds (see photos below). Apparently, this conservancy hasn’t been established long enough for the populations to build up. The habitat is here and with time I suspect it will host an abundance of wildlife, but for now the sightings are sparse. The landscape is mostly grassland savannah and scrub with a few water features, as the photos below will show. One great thing about doing a safari here is that there are essentially no other people. We had the conservancy pretty much to ourselves. I think we saw one other vehicle the entire day while on our drives.
Here is a youtube link to a composite video of our Mugie Conservancy visit for those of you that like action photography, but do see the pictures in the photo gallery as well:
Mugie Conservancy composite video (6 minutes)
Photo Gallery:
WOW! The photos are so clear and just gorgeous!! The new phone was well worth it just for the photos and videos. That sunset was remarkable.
Looks like you’re all having a great time.
Looking forward to your next post so I can follow the adventure with you. Sister Joan
The pictures are stunning. Nice you had the conservancy to yourselves.
The Grevy’s zebra was great! I agree with your comment about the value of the conservation work the private game reserves are doing. That certainly holds true for ChaZen where I went earlier this year and am returning to next year.