Oltukai Conservancy

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Dec 22 2007 | By: admin

Ol Tukai has had good rains over the last few weeks bringing the annual wildlife dispersals into the Ol Tukai area of the Tarangire-Manyara Corridor.

Zebra and Gazelles are arriving in large numbers, as well as elephant and other animals becoming more relaxed in our area…a very good sign that our work is successful!

Sadly we have seen less than 10 individual Wildebeest in Ol Tukai this season…this Eastern Race of the White-Bearded Gnu is in serious decline and our wildlife monitoring work in Ol Tukai supports this reality.

It is very difficult to raise awareness about this eastern rift valley race of wildebeest due the misperception that in Northern Tanzania, a wildebeest is a wildebeest and people don’t realize that this is a completely separate population from the Serengeti/Mara population.

Data from the last 10 years on these wildebeest show a consistent decline leading to estimates of a population down over 90% since the early 90’s.

Ol Tukai is prime wet-season grazing and breeding ground for these wildebeest and we are looking to become more proactive in their conservation as it seems that time is indeed running out on this unique and important race of wildebeest.