Editorial Team

Sabine Baer: Chief Operating Officer Lafarge Eco Systems

Alex Mutiso: Tourism and Ecosystems Manager

Albert Musando: Parks Officer

Sharon Okanga: Wild Life Officer

Stephen Tuwei: Wild Life Supervisor

Anastacia Cherono: Office Administrator

Patricia Aruwa: Marketing Officer

The team will endeavor to keep you abreast with all the news and all that is happening at Lafarge Eco Systems.

Here is a recent photo of Owen who as you all can see under the nurturing of Cleo has really grown.

It is only fitting that as we revive the blog we introduce our latest visitor to the park ... "Mfalme." He will be visiting till January.

Mfalme was made for several reasons to 1) make the world more aware of marine pollution and its effects on species, habitats and ecosystems, 2) generate greater understanding of whaling and its impacts on whales and their habitat around the world, 3) highlight the creativity and resourcefulness of coastal communities and their efforts to improve their lives through other peoples waste and 4) showcase an innovative solution to cleaning up the world’s oceans.

Dear bloggers,

 It is regrettable that we announce the end of the blog. The Lafarge Ecosystems website will shortly be merged together with the website for Bamburi Cement, our parent company. The blog will not be able to migrate with us however, as it is not in line with the theme of the Bamburi website.

 We have enjoyed and appreciated your comments and contributions over the years. It is the end of an era but it was our pleasure to shared this time with you. God Bless you and keep you.

 Lafarge Ecosystems Management

Dear bloggers, kindly allow our vervet monkeys here to escort you to the parking lot ,where you may park your vehicles and we may begin our long awaited journey into the park once more.

As I promised in the previous entry I will take you on a guided tour of our 'rat house' where we breed and house the various rats that nourish our snakes in the reptile park and our four owls.

To avoid any confusion this photograph is an infusion of two separate parts of the rat house put onto one template. The cages or boxes that are visible in the photo are where the rats are kept according to what age and size they are. They are cared for by our expert on rats and snakes,Bakari. The fully grown adults are given to the owls, theafrican rock pythons and any of the other larger snakes. The smaller snakes depending on their dietary requirements will be given smaller juvenille rats. basically the size of the snake determines the size of the rat it is given.

These are some of the juvenille rats that are kept in the rat house. As soon as I leaned close to take the photo they all ran straight into the corner as you can see in the photo and huddled up close together. They are rather jumpy creatures and as you walk down the corridor of the shed, the reaction in all the rat cages is the same......dozens of rats scurrying into corners.

Bakari informed me that the owls had been fed the rats yesterday so I went to have a peek to see if there were any signs of the rats but it looks like they had been devouered already. I found cocopuff resting on the ground in the shade of the concrete slab. I found this rather unusual. As I approached more closely I could hear him making a clicking sound with his beak as if warning to stay back.

While at the owls I decided to check up on my two favorite hippos. I found Cleo resting peacefully by the edge of the pond and Owen submerged by her side. If you look closely at the first photograph you may notice a small circle of bubbles on the left hand side of Cleo.....thatis how the water looksjust before Owen or any hippo for that matter is about to resurface. When attempting to identify where a hippo is when it is submerged...the bubbles are always the easiest way to spot them. In the next photo you can just about make out Owens head and nostrils as he comes to the surface of the water to get some air. He only reveals a pink set of nostrils keeping the rest of hishead submerged. This is how Owen spends most of his time during the day and his distance from Cleo is almost always the same in such situations, where heis next to Cleo.

To our great delight here at the Haller Park I am happy to inform you all that we have had two births of waterbuck calves within the span of the last month. The most recent birth has been around one and a half weeks ago. I have a photo of the calf born to the waterbuck family that reside in the park itself as it is still very difficult to get a picture of the newer born calf as they are always hidden and protected by the mother.

It was pure coincidence that I came across this mother-calf pair resting in the thicket, not too far off from the kaya, where i had just been to see Mzee and Toto. I had circled the whole park area during the afternoon on a mission to find the waterbuck family to investigate the state of the calf when I just just about given up hope of seeing them that day. Luckily I decided to tae a short cut through the trees when i stumbled upon them. I think I was more startled when I spotted them, than they were to see me. So not to scare the young one I took a few cautious steps back and stood watching from a distance. The calf was very inquisitive and stared right back at me and even stood up on four perfectly strong and sturdy legs to get a better look at me. Calves will take around half an hour to gain their balance after which within a day or two are able to outrun a man. An unusual behaviour not seen in other antelopes is that when mothers want calves to follow they signal them by holding the tail up or out.

Just before my encounter with the waterbucks I had been in the kaya. Toto was sheltered behind a large log doing what these giant tortoises do best.....eating the dead leaves off the ground. My karate flying jump over the wall caused Toto to look up looking slightly if not very annoyed at the intrusion. Not too far away was the resident bushbuck feeding on a pile of cut leaves and stems specially placed for her. There was no sign of Mzee who must have been on the far side of the kaya. Not being able to stay too long I couldnt go looking for the old chap butI am quiteconfident he was intently feeding too.

I appologise to those who may be sensetive to such an image but i thought it was a great oppertunity to show a picture of the feeding behaviour of verreux owls. The owls are fed rats from the rat breeding house. Perhaps in the next blog I can show a picture of that and explain more about the purpose of it. In the wild these owls would feed on small birds, smallmammals and even small monkeys, they may even chase moths and small insects so have quite a wide diet range.

Mzee straight from his mud bath

Basking in the morning sunlight the gentle reptilian giant feeds intently on the fallen dead foliage from the ground, as the thick dark mud begins to harden and cake around the rim of his shell. Mzee spent most of the early hours of the day bathing in the muddy pond covered in the cool, viscous water trying to keep the humid air from overheating his aged body. I know many of you out there who have been following the Owen and Mzee story are really keen on having the two, meet again. In my opinion we must allow Owen to the lead the life of a hippopotamus in the wild, that is only to be with other hippos and let the friendship that had developed between him and mzee continue as fond memories. It would be unfair to subject either one to each other now, after they have become accustomed to being apart and there is no guarantee that either one will react as they had in those initial encounters. It is very easy for us to attach human emotions to animals and forget that Owen is indeed a hippo and Mzee is a tortoise.

A game of tag with cleo chasing owen

Owen has fit in so well with Cleo. For the first couple of months that owen was introduced to Cleo the trend was Owen would be the one following Cleo around wherever she moved in the boma but now Owen takes the lead at times and Cleo appears to want to follow him around. They sometimes play a form of catch and catch where Owen tries to swim away from Cleo and gets a reasonable distance from her and she then goes bounding after her little companion reaching him in two giant leaps. A skipping hippo as I like to call it. Then she swims away and Owen chases after her but more discretely, usually while submerged and the only clue is the trail of bubbles at the surface.

Paula, Kibet and Me (Stephen)

This is a picture taken of the young boy Kibet, who wrote the Kiswahili version of the Owen and Mzee story with Paula and Myself. This was specially important to have for all the local Kenyan schools and children.

Last week we had a very unexpected visitor brought into the park by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). One of the rangers had rescued a ground pangolin from a village on the mainland, south of Mombasa Island. The KWS thought it best to bring it here for safe keeping while they located a suitable area for it to be relocated to. Pangolins are generally very shy creatures and are not often seen when in the wild. Unfortunately they are hunted for their armour which is use by some local peoples for medicine. Pangolins are not listed as threatened under IUCN red list terms but I fear it may be an issue overlooked. While the pangolin was in our care we discovered it was indeed a young female.

 On a sweltering hot afternoon I decided to go and inspect the young pangolin to see how she was coping with her new surroundings and to my suprise I could see her nowhere on the ground of the fenced enclosure. I scoured the ground for any sign of her armoured body thinking she may be taking shelter under the shrub but there was no sign of her. I heard a strange clancking sound and looked up and there she was suspended on the wooden beam clinging onto it with her long claws for dear life. I watched for a few mintues while I waited for someone to arrive with the keys, worried that she might fall. After an intense struggle to stay on the beam she managed to climb to the end of the beam and slide steadily down the pole. It was at that instant that I developed a great fondness for her. Pangolins are primarily nocturnal creatures and as for them being shy, this little lady was more than happy to lumber around me while I was stood inside her enclosure. She walked straight past me like I was part of the surrounding.

The pangolin and me while I attempted to make her surroundings more comfortable

Pangolins have a very unique almost lumbering gate. As I spent many an hour observing this unique species I become more and more intrigued and fascinated by her. She rarely used her front limbs but mainly relied on her strong hind limbs to support herself as she moved along. I observed her sunbathing a number of times with front limbs crossed over each other lying on her belly. This little pangolin captured the attention of the media immediately and became an instant hit at the park amongst the staff. She has been take to be released in a national park that will hopefully provide a secure home for her from the hands of poachers.

I captured a moment of Owen and Cleo playing together in that mischevious and childlike manner. Its a rare sight but I managed to take a photo so that you all may experience the budding friendship. It almost appears to be like a little kiss or perhaps cleo is mistaking owen for a dairy cube since it was around their usual feeding time.

Dear bloggers, as most of you may already be aware Paula Kahumbu who has been the general manager of Lafarge ecosystems and the surrogate mother of Owen since his rescue has left to continue adding to her enourmous contributions to wildlife conservation where it is greatly needed. It is for this reason I am dedicating this blog to her to commemorate all the work put into Haller Park over the past three years. Paula was the one responsible for bringing you the story of a bond between two animals, Owen and Mzee and shared it with the rest if the world.

Paula feeding trinity

The most gentle of all the giants is our dominant male giraffe Trinity. Paula recognised this as she fed the giraffes one last time. 'Trininty is so much more gentle when he takes the dairy cubes from your hand compared to the other females'. You could see that she has an inate love for animals from the way she interacts with them. Perhaps Trinity has a sense that this would be the last time in a long time that he would have the pleasure of gorging off Paulas hand and was on his best behaviour, although I cant say the same for the other females.

On that particular trip down to the park we had the pleasure of bumping into a family who had come to visit the park all the way from the United States. The two boys were from Milton Academy Lower School and told us abouthow the third graders hadreadthe Owen and Mzee story book and were learning about Kenya and various other topics that they had picked up from the book and decided to raise some money for the Haller Park by selling sunflower seeds. We all at Haller park were so touched by this that we decided it must feature in our blog to thank everyone involved for their kind gensture especiallyeach and every single third grader. Thankyou from the bottom of our hearts.

Paula with Tarin and Naavin Karimbux.

This photo was taken outside the Owen and Cleo enclosure of Paula and the two ambassedors of the Milton Academy with one of our aldabra tortoises that of late seems to want to do nothing more than lounge around near the boma. Since the rains not a day goes by that this particular tortoise isn't seen grazing in the same patch. I must say the boys knew almost more about the Owen and Mzee story than I do.

Hello bloggers, this blog is going to take on a little different direction just for the beginning because I feel there have been some extremely important events that have taken place in the park this month and i would like to share the basics with you.  As some of you may be aware it was world environment day on the 5^th and here at the Haller Park we had an open day on Saturday the 2^nd of June to commemorate it. It was a huge success. We had over 6000 people for the event. This year’s theme was Climate change: Melting of ice. If something is not done to stop the effects of global warming all the animals you have grown to admire and love at the park will be lost in the wild as their habitats will be negatively affected due to climate change. Captivity may end up being the only place where most species especially the large mammals will be able to survive. As a global society we need to start thinking in an environmentally friendly way and assess how every action we undertake in our daily lives will affect the fate of the environment as a whole. Here are 10 easy ways to make a difference and help stop climate change as an individual.

Over the weekend the Haller Park played host to the launch of the convention of the year of the dolphin 2007. The conventions main aim is to launch an awareness campaign on the various threats to dolphin survival such as by-catch and water pollution. Local coastal communities, mainly fishing ones have been the prime target for the campaign but the larger picture is to create global awareness on the plight of the dolphins. www.YoD2007.org is the official website for more information.

The night before the world evvironment day on a usual visit to the bushbabies I laid out bits of peeled bananas on the ground for the young ones as they are more cautious and shy compared to the adults and a lot less able to withstand the ferocious tenacity of the dominant individuals. Bushbabies tend to fight amongst each other a lot and cause a great raucous when it involves bananas. On this one occasion I heard a large commotion come from the side of the tree where the ground was littered with the banana pieces. My initial reaction was to ignore the noise as I figured it was two bushbabies fighting over the food. I heard an unfamiliar sound and went to take a closer look and realised that all this time a common genet cat had snuck around the tree and started stealing the pieces of banana from the bushbabies causing them to become very agitated. Eventually the intruder was driven away but that didn’t stop her from taking one more longing glance at the fruit. 

Excited as ever to see my old friend Mzee I strapped on my boots and fought my way through the thick brown mud as it tried to engulf my feet. As I got to the kaya I discovered that the heavy rain and strong winds had battled the fig trees outside the kaya walls, now defeated, lay uprooted and strewn across the ground.. I had expected to find toto making the most of her rain filled pool having a mud bath but was pleasantly surprised to find Mzee and toto resting close to each other at the far end of the kaya. Jumping over the wall, I carefully approached the duo to greet them by stroking the soft side of their skin in the underside of their neck. Toto’s immediate reaction was to retract her head and move closer towards her older and wiser companion but he stretched his neck out towards me waiting for me to pet him. His mouth was covered in white and green foam from feeding on the leaves. For a brief moment our eyes connected and for a long while after I had left the company of Mzee I wondered what he would say to me if he could speak in a language I understood.

Mzee the protector of toto

Cleo and Owen were submerged when I had gone to visit them in the morning. Cleo surfaced when I called to her and moved closer towards my direction but Owen remained submerged at her tail end. She is still fond of human company and attention. When she is on the grassland close to the wall feeding on the grass and she sees me or a member of staff she snorts a couple of times in greeting and wags her tail, she then lays her head down so that it touches the ground for a while almost like she is waiting to be petted on the head. I have seen this from her on numerous occasions and with different people. One of the staff while trimming at the vegetation around her enclosure had to jump out as she went running towards him to greet him from her pool. She did not leave his side for so long that he had to resume his work a few hours later. Owen is still rather shy and cautious around people but Cleo is definitely rubbing off onto him in subtle ways.

Cleo laying her head down after greeting me.

In one of the casuarina trees I spotted a curious vervet monkey that was watching me with intent. Everytime I shifted my position moving closer or further from the tree it would try and do the same. Yet if I got too close it would turn tail and run then once it had gained a reasonable distance it would turn back around and look at me. Its curiosity reminded me of a small child but not as naïve. Vervet monkeys are important seed dispersers for various fruiting trees and shrubs in forests along the coast. The seeds that are found in their faeces will germinate (grow) if they are deposited in suitable conditions.

A curious onlooker.

Next to Owen and Cleo’s enclosure there are a pair of spotted eagle owls that were confiscated from street boys who were trying to sell them. They are housed next to Coco Puff but are not as friendly or as large. They are very shy and get frightened when people are anywhere close to them. Local people fear owls and believe them to be evil and usually stone them or chase them away causing many fatalities to the owls. Owls are some of the most fascinating and majestic birds of prey.