The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy had much to celebrate at the end of 2018 so I thought I'd pick out two things which they are celebrating to tell you about :-) 

The Conservancy is located at the foothills of Mount Kenya, and it works to protect and manage of species, initiate and support  community conservation and development programmes, and educate neighbouring areas in the value of wildlife.

So here are a couple of successes Lewa had in 2018

17 Rhino Births and ZERO poaching

With their landscape partner Boran Conservancy, Lewa is now home to over 170 rhinos!  They are looking forward to reaching the 200 rhino milestone!   

The rhinos moved from Lewa to the Sera Community Conservancy are also thriving with rhino birds and no poaching.

There were 17 rhino births in 2018
© Lewa Wildlife Conservancy

The plan is to remove fences between Lewa, Borana and Il Ngwesi Community Conservancy so that there's a secure space for their growing population.  

Increase in the survival rate of Grevy's zebra foals

Previoulsy, predation lessened the number of foals who survived into adulthood.   This slowed population growth.   The good rains in 2018 provided healthy pasture needed for the foals and other wildlife to survive and thrive.  There are just 2,800 Grevy Zebra left in the world, and 11% are found on Lewa, so this increase is important.

Lewa recorded an increase in the survival rate of Grevy's zebra foals
©Lewa Wildlife Conservancy

Lewa has also been busy educating 400 Northern Kenya students, teaching them about land degradation and human-wildlife conflict and what they can do to address these challenges.   In 2018, 400 students and their teachers visited Lewa and they received lessons on things such as reforestation, water harvesting and wildlife protection. 

Today there’s good news from Born Free.

100 years ago, there were about 100,000 tigers across Asia.   Today, there are just 4,000 and the tiger is officially classified a Endangered by the IUCN (that’s the International Union for Conservation of Nature).

Threats to tigers include

• Human-wildlife conflict
• Poaching for body parts for traditional “medicine”
• Habitat loss because of deforestation and development, which people are driving

Born Free have an initiative called Living with Tigers.  It’s a network of Indian NGOs working across central India in the Satpuda area.   

The network does a number of things, namely to:

• Tackle the poaching crisis
• Safeguard tiger habitats
• Find compassionate solutions so that communities and wildlife can live together

There’s a dedicated teams of Tiger Ambassadors.  These are local villagers who are trained to identify signs of tigers being present in their area and to help if conflict arises.

There’s also a Mobile Education Unit which teachers local school children about wildlife conservation.

So the good news for tiger conservation is....

Tiger numbers have increased to 500 across the Satpuda landscape in the last 10 years.  This is great news but Born Free wants to go further.   It wants to: 

1. Safeguard wild tiger populations in central India
2. Work with more local communities to reduce human-wildlife conflict
3. Create more protected areas so that wildlife can flourish
4. Educate more people on the importance of conservation and approaches to co-existence.

Great news from Mexico!

The World Land Trust reports that trail cameras in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve there have filmed a Black Bear recorded in central Mexico.  

This is the first Black Bear recorded there for 100 years!

There's also footage of a nine-banded Armadillo and Jaguar.

Back in 2018, supporters of the World Land Trust raised a whopping £57,800 to protect an area of the forest of 578 acres - that's the size of nearly 300 football pitches!

Panthera is dedicated solely to the conservation of wild cats.   And Panthera has shared its plans for 2019 and the advances it wants to make for big cats:

Take On Wildlife Crime and Trafficking Globally
To clamp down on the threat to other cat species in areas of the world where wildlife crime is rising.  Funding from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will help Panthera to increase its work with government partners around the world to disrupt the criminals targeting tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards and snow leopards.

Revolutionize the Way it Shares and Uses Scientific Data
To roll out what is arguably the largest collection of data on wild cats in the world.  Its new data system will enable scientists and partners to expand and share knowledge in ways they never have before, with immediate access to millions of camera trap images and analytical tools applicable across species, sites, and regions.  This global network will change the way conservation is done and speed progress.

Increase its Eyes on the Wild
To produce and use up to 10,000 of the PantheraCam V7s - meaning that up to 28,000 camera traps will be in the field.  These should be a big help to wild cat biologists.

Be a part of this journey -
Sign up to Panthera for updates and ways to help here