Two weeks ago I was alerted about an issue at the Konza ICT Technical Park. The 5000 acre Park fence has been underway since early this year. I have watched with dismay as the posts were placed and as chain linke has surrounded the entire Park... leaving only about 1KM opening and creating a fullel trype trap for resident wildlife.

ACK welcomes Elena Chelysheva, a Russian zoologist, into the Kenya cheetah team. Elena received affiliation with KWS and her three year research permit from the Ministry of Education to conduct evaluations in the Mara National Reserve and in the Meru National Park and surrounding ecosystems. Elena will work with other carnivore programmes in the two regions to identify cheetahs and conduct survey of social structure.

For the past six years ACK has been monitoring the cheetah and the ecosystem in the Salama area. Results from the data collected are entered into a series of data bases and each year we run preliminary analysis of the data. In our upcoming newsletters and annual reports we are proud to say that we are now able to look at some of the trends in this data. One of the most challenging issues for the staff on the ground is in explaining the importance of collecting the data.

Historically, fire has played an important role in shaping landscapes' flora and fauna

By Mark Kinwer – Environment reporter, BBC News

A model has helped shed light on how human-started fires shaped Africa's landscape, researchers report.

Read the complete article at BBC News

Before human activity became widespread, most fires were caused by lightning strikes during the continent's wet seasons, they said.

Wild chimpanzees monitor the information available to other chimpanzees and inform their ignorant group members of danger

Read the complete article at AlphaGalileo Foundation

By Brian Vastagg

Read the complete article in The Washington Post

The National Institutes of Health has placed a temporary moratorium on new studies using chimpanzees, it announced Thursday in response to a report that marks nearly all medical research on the great apes as scientifically unjustified.

It is not too late! Order your calendar(s) today!

http://www.cheetah.org/?nd=cheetah_shop

Make a gift for ACK by donating

http://www.cathaven.com/Catalog.aspx?catid=3

In addition to Erica who has been previously introduced we will work with Nelson Owange – a student of Epidemiology and Economics at the University of Nairobi. Nelson has spent time with our staff and is familiarizing himself with the Salama and Athi-Kapiti areas as he continues his coursework. Nelson will be trained on handling the sniffer dog and on the fecal processing… although he has more previous experience in fecal analysis than any of us! (Nelson worked with EarthWatch in Wamba (Samburu) conducting hair analysis of various predators).

I rented a car and drove from Atlanta to Virginia.. arriving on the doorstep of Miriam Westervelt after eight hours behind the wheel. Miriam is a former US Fish and Wildlife Service – environmental educator. She spent only a week with ACK after previously working on strategic planning for the education department of CCF in Namibia. She is currently studying conservation planning and has a passion for Kenya. I enjoyed tours of the environmental work that Miriam does in her own back yard, and we chatted extensively about conservation planning for ACK.

I attended the annual AZA conference in Atlanta, Georgia in September 2011. I presented an update of ACK studies to the Cheetah Species Survival Plan and the Felid Taxon Advisory Group. Each presentation was brief – just enough to update people interested in cheetah conservation. I spoke about the draft results from the national cheetah survey and its link to the regional cheetah strategies. I also introduced a photo by Guy Combes of a spotless cheetah seen in the Athi-Kapiti and Malili areas of southern Kenya.