The Living, The Dead and The Dying

Today it resembles a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie.

The smell that assaults your nostrils from the moment you land at the airstrip is one of death and decay. Even before landing at Amboseli, the devastation is visible from the air above.

As we drove towards our destination at the Tortilis camp in the Kituara conservancy, the true scale of the tragedy that has befallen Amboseli National Park became evident. The once lush green fields of grass were now nothing but a lifeless desert with fine white sand blowing in the wind and covering everything in sight.

There were carcasses of wildebeest and zebras dotting the landscape every few yards. The carrion eaters had had their fill, abandoning the leftovers to the flies and maggots that now swarmed over the remains, in turn becoming food for the egrets and ibises that had suddenly discovered a feast.

Many animals had given up hope and sat on the ground, heads bent and touching the earth, as if asking for relief from the torment of hunger. A few brave individuals still stood on their feet, trying to tease out the last remnant of nourishment from the dead land, swallowing the salted dirt along with the few blades of grass that remained, not knowing that it would soon make their insides burn with thirst and multiply their agony manyfold.

The only water left in the park was in the swamps which was full of parasites that wreaked further havoc on their already weak system.

Every dead tree in the park had one or more vultures in it, sometimes along with their fellow-traveler, the Marabou Stork. All waiting patiently for the next meal. There was so much death all around that they could pick and choose, instead of fighting for scraps as usual.

As the day progressed, we saw animals that were alive in the morning dead by the afternoon. A dead zebra lay in in the wet swamp grass, its eyes still open, staring at nothing. In the background the wildebeest waited their turn for the inevitable.

The browsers had a somewhat better time, the impalas and gazelles being able to eat the shoots and leaves from the scrub and drink from the sparse ground water. Amid this starvation, the permanent swamps of the Amboseli provided ample water and aquatic life for the large flocks of lesser and greater flamingo, jacanas, herons and other waterbirds that carried on with their lives, completely oblivious to the death all around them. For while ground water can provide for some creatures, it cannot produce grass which is the only food grazers like wildebeest and zebras can survive on.

The elephants too seemed to carry on regardless, with their ability to pull down branches from trees or the entire tree itself, then stripping its bark and other nutrients from it. There was still some green to be seen on the bushes and trees here and there. They were able to make the most of it.

There was dust everywhere and it stuck to everything. The lustrous and glossy golden-brown coats of the gazelles and impalas, even the beautiful Oryx, took on a pale and ghostly patina, making you wonder if it was a different species of animal. Many of them looked starved with a clearly visible ribcage.

The pre-historic lake Amboseli had once again become completely dry, with long lines of wildebeest and elephants crossing it every day in search of food and water.

The once proud Kibo peak of the Kilimanjaro hid itself from us, behind clouds, as if ashamed of all that it witnessed in its domain. Every morning dark clouds gathered overhead, bringing with them a promise of the much-needed rain, but it was just a promise. By the evening they too would disperse, and the sun would reveal itself again. The only times we saw the mountain peak was very briefly one evening and again from the airplane headed to Tsavo. The scale of the problem then became evident. The once famous snows of the Kilimanjaro had been reduced to just a sliver of white, barely visible even from the air.

There have been no rains for almost two years now, the longest and worst drought since 2008 when thousands of animals had died under similar circumstances.

It is a delicate balance. Without rain, there would be no snow and eventually, no meltwater nourishing countless animals in the surrounding forests and plains.

With too much of it, the grass becomes too long for the grazers to feed on.

In this strange and surreal scenario, even the trees were dying, but not from lack of water, rather, too much of it. In the abandoned Amboseli Lodge, large clumps of trees were dying a slow death, their roots poisoned from too much salt water that originates in the melting snows of the Kilimanjaro, then seeps through the foothills, passing into underground springs that finally resurface in Amboseli over 25 miles away. In some places it is life-giving fresh water that they bring, in other parts of the park it is salt-laden death that is as toxic to the trees as it is to the animals.

While this was going on at Amboseli, just over a hundred miles to the north and west as the crow flies – or in this case as the clouds travel, the legendary plains of the Masai Mara were enjoying a daily helping of rain to liven up the evenings and provide an abundance of grass for large wildebeest and zebra population that had moved over from the dry plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania.

It is this annual migration of these massive herds of animals that is a huge draw for safari goers, us included. Every year, starting in June, thousands of wildebeest, zebras and accompanying gazelles and impalas cross the border of Tanzania into the western part of the Masai Mara in Kenya. From there they follow the rains and cross the Mara River and its tributaries into the main part of the reserve. They stay in this ecosystem for months, crisscrossing the rivers several times in a long loop until they return to the plains of the Serengeti in February to have their offspring. The numbers are staggering - some years up to a million and a half make this long journey. It is one of the largest migration of animals on earth.

Strangely though, this year the animals chose to stay in the western part of the National Reserve. There was no need for them to brave the hazards of crossing the crocodile-infested Mara River as there was plenty of grass in the ‘Triangle’ as it is called, thanks to the daily showers.

And thus, while there was a feast of food on this side, there was famine of an unprecedented nature just across the hills.

Is this all due to climate change? It is very difficult to quantify the effects of the changing climate of the planet when it comes to Africa as there is limited data, but several sources suggest that the chaotic pattern of droughts or excessive rain is likely due to global warming. The rains often come when they are not expected and then do not when they are most desired. Some years the floods are extensive – during our visit in 2020 the bridge over the Talek river in the Masai Mara was washed away and the dry lake in Amboseli had become a real lake, making navigation across impossible even for elephants.