RUMA NATIONAL GAME PARK IS GRADUALLY LOSING ITS SPECIAL AND RARE ROAN ANTELOPE WHICH IS THE CENTER OF ATTRACTION FOR TOURISTS UNLESS CONSERVATION EFFORT IMPROVES.
Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Homa-Bay.
The rare roan antelope which for decades ago was roaming the hills plains in Eastern, Mt.Elgon and many wild animal sanctuaries in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania is gradually facing inevitable extinction.
Experts say only about 50 are left and their last home is Ruma National Game Park in Mbita district within Homa-Bay County.
The fierce and beautiful almost the size of Greater Kudu and Oryx, the roan antelope is arguably the center of attraction to tourists visiting the Ruma National Park, which is located abut 23 kilometers southwest of the lakeside town of Homa-Bay. The park, however, is administratively part of Mbita district.
During the recently concluded workshop held in Homa-Bay to sensitize the local communities on the importance of the community backed conservation, the Director of the Kenya Wild Life Services Julius Kipng’etich issued an alert signal that the rare roan antelope is gradually facing extinction unless join conservation measures are put in place.
He told the participants that the future of roan antelope in Ruma National Game Park is a matter of urgent concern to the local leaders and the entire communities living within the villages surrounding the park.
The rare roan antelope is great asset to the park, which is expected to play an important economic role in the newly created Homa-Bay County under the new constitutional dispensation as sure way on its revenue and source of the region’s economy. The County is expected to be constituted and inaugurated next year after the general election and will have to improve infrastructure jointly with KWS so as to make it attractive to the tourists and vibrant.
Ruma National Game park houses variety of wildlife, bird and pre-historic sites and there is high expectation that the park, which is he only one in the Southern Nyanza region would be an asset and major source of revenue to the County.
The KWS boss said that the beautiful and rare roan antelope now facing extinction could only be found at Ruma National Game Park. And the workshop was held specifically to be brainstorm on the recovery and conservation of the endangered species of antelope.
Kipng’etich disclosed that the population of roan antelope is rapidly declining at an alarming rate, He attributed this trend to several factors predation, disease and threat to forest habitat.
He said the last position of refuge of the roan antelope globally is in the 120 square kilometers Ruma National Game Park which is found I the Lambwe Valley, about 425 kilometers South West of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
That not withstanding, Kipng’etich warned tat the population of roan antelope at the Ruma National Game Park has drastically declined from202 in 1976 to only about 50 individual currently roaming the park.
“The decline in number shrinking in distribution roan antelope in Kenya necessitate to the formation of a national task force.
The task force will spearhead the process of formulating a national recovery, conservation and management strategy.
The strategy was released by the government last month {August 2011}, is expected to guide the conservation efforts of the roan antelope. It will explore all available options to ensure the species thrives for the present and future generations.
Originally the roan antelope occupied fairly large areas of Southern Kenya. Conservation experts say the antelope used to abundantly occupy all wild animal sanctuaries from Lake Nation to Lake Victoria, Mt Elgon, and Cherangany hills, as well as pockets of Central and Thika, Kitui as well as an area east of Chyulu Hills.
But is populations have declined rapidly during the last 40 years throughout its traditional natural habitat.
The KWS experts say there have been no confirmed reports of species from either Eastern or Mara and Oloolal Escarpment of the Mt Elgon region over the last region..
Kipng’etich told the communities living next to the Ruma National Park to participate fully in the conservation effort of the park if they want to benefit for it.They should imagine and take it serious that this is the last home of the roan antelope in Africa.
He called on local people and leaders from the entire Homa-Bay County to step up their cooperative effort to enhance the county’s rare resources, which he noted is very strategic for the development of the region in terms of employment opportunities..The workshop was also attended by participants from Tanzania and Uganda and the Chief Game Warden at the Ruma National Game Park John Wambua.
uma National Game Park used to be rich in all sorts of wildlife including the Big Five, but owing to human population pressure, the colonial authority in Kenya in the early 1940s ordered to for the physical removal f elephants, the shooting and killing of lions while the few population of rhinos moved out and settle at the nearby Manyuru Forest in Central Kabuch Location, where they were whipped by poachers and this forest is now human villages. The elephants were escorted to Ang’we Forest, which is located six kilometers east of Awendo town, and eventually escorted to the Sikawa Hills now part of the Maasai Mara.
What used to be part ofAng’we forest is now part of the nucleus estates of the SONYSUGAR company based at Awendo’ Effort by the leaders of the former County Council of South Nyanza to have the elephants returned to the park in the early 1960 hit the rock due to logistic problems, but a few herds of buffaloes numbering about 60 are still holed deep in the Lambwe forest and rarely comes out during the day. The buffaloes have become the target of poachers from the surrounding villages using snare wires to capture them for meat and other crude method of killing the animals.
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