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WONDERS OF NATURE
Tsavo. Nature miracle
The area of Tsavo Park, located in Kenya, exceeds 2 million hectares. This is one of the largest national parks in Africa. It was created in 1948 on the site of a reserve that existed since 1946. The 1982 UN list included 12 national parks in Kenya, which cover 4,5 percent of the country's territory. The largest is the oldest park Tsavo, the other 11 parks were created in 1949-1974, they are much smaller in size.
The first president of independent Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, who called the country's natural resources an invaluable heritage for future generations, consistently pursued a policy of protecting natural resources. Thus, in a relatively short period, the number of national parks and reserves of wild animals reached 39 (their area is more than 4,4 million hectares). Most of the parks are within a few hours' drive of Nairobi, and all parks are connected by roads. The Tsavo and Ati Rivers flow through the park and join at Lugard Falls to form the Galana River. Other Tsavo rivers are filled with water only during the rainy season. Then the park turns into a country of ponds with blue and green fish, waterfalls and streams. Tsavo is located high in relation to sea level (800-2000 m). Most of it is occupied by shrubs and semi-desert plants resistant to moisture deficiency. During the dry season, thorny shrubs cover the entire area of the park. However, real montane rainforests grow along the slopes of the Chulu Hills. The landscape of Tsavo is characterized by gigantic heaps of huge boulders and red sandstone rocks. The highway and the railway line divide the park into two independent parts - western and eastern. In western Tsavo there is a site of volcanic activity - a wide valley filled with lava for several kilometers more than two hundred years ago. In the Kilaguni Lodge area, there are similar sites, but smaller. The sources of Mzima Springs, which form a system of deep reservoirs with clear water and thickets of papyrus, are also located in the zone of volcanic activity. Hippos, barbels, large fish live here. In eastern Tsavo, near the rocks of Mudanda Rocks, there is a bowl (up to 500 m long), "finished" with flat red stone slabs. During the rainy season, it fills with water. With the onset of drought, hundreds of elephants gather here to drink. The species of large mammals in Tsavo are almost the same as in Amboseli or the Serengeti. However, lesser kudu, oryx and gerenuk are found here in large numbers - rare animals for other parks. But Thomson's gazelles are not in Tsavo. Instead of Grant's gazelle, which is characteristic of many other parks, Peters' gazelle is found here. Waterbucks in Tsavo are special - there is a light ring around their tail, not a spot. The local ostriches have a bluish neck. In Tsavo, attempts were made to acclimatize black antelopes and Grevy's zebras. There are many predators in Tsavo, even an earthen wolf, but they are all very cautious, so it is unlikely to meet them during a trip through the park. However, the lions here are so ferocious that they even delayed the construction of a railway between the coast of the Indian Ocean and Nairobi. Rhinos and hippos, zebras and congoni live here. Giraffe gazelles and Grant's gazelles. Oryxes are large antelope with straight and long sword-like horns. Lesser kudu is an antelope of rare beauty, thin white stripes are drawn along the sides of its bluish-gray body. The color pattern of each animal is unique, and therefore a dossier has been opened for each kudu. Leslie Brown, one of the connoisseurs of African animals, called this animal the Apollo of the antelopes. However, you will not find large herds in Tsavo, as, for example, in the Serengeti. More than 450 species of birds live in the park. Guinea fowl and francolins, starlings and black buffalo weavers live here. Currents with red beaks climb along branches with long spines. Vultures soar high in the sky. White storks gather in large flocks. There are many elephants on the territory of Tsavo. All the baobabs in the park are gnawed: elephants rip off the bark with their tusks, trying to get to the moisture-bearing pulp. The problem of the extermination of elephants arose relatively recently, but the prerequisites for its occurrence appeared when Europeans began to inhabit Africa. Chasing ivory, elephants were exterminated, and developing the land, they narrowed the number of habitual habitats for the elephant. Elephants became less and less. In 1933, the situation improved somewhat after the introduction of a ban on uncontrolled hunting, but elephants continued to die at the hands of poachers and representatives of a special hunting inspection that protects the local population from wild animals. Only in the 20-40s of the XX century, when the first national parks and reserves were created, did the situation of elephants change significantly. By the early 1960s, there were already more than 200 elephants in Africa (more than there were when the first Europeans arrived here). And a new problem arose - overpopulation of animals. Scientists have calculated that an animal needs 4-6,4 percent of wet food per day of body weight (for example, an elephant weighs 1700 kg, which means that its daily food requirement is about 100 kg). There are over 500 species of plants in Africa that the elephant eats. Most often, it breaks off and eats tree branches or cuts down trees no thicker than 25–35 cm in diameter, it rips off the bark of baobabs, and often destroys trunks by more than half. To feed one elephant for a year, you need an area of \u5b\u5babout 7 square meters. km with vegetation. In Tsavo, one animal (in some national parks of East Africa - 1-100 animals) accounts for 150 square. km of territory. Once upon a time, the elephants of Kenya and Uganda at the beginning of the dry season went to the foothills and on the slopes of the mountains, into the forests. Now well-protected plantations are found on the usual paths of animals. In addition, most of the year, elephants need watering places (an elephant drinks from 230–XNUMX to XNUMX liters per day during the dry season), therefore, in arid areas, such as Tsavo, elephants do not tend to move to distant water bodies when a drought sets in. But at the same time, vegetation on the banks is almost completely destroyed. A. Bannikov and V. Flint write: “In addition to the direct lack of food and water, many other phenomena, ultimately generated by their own activities, negatively affect elephants. animals (in adult males, on average, weight decreased by 500-600 kg), increased the intervals between births and slowed the onset of puberty.The decrease in shade that followed the death of trees was reflected in an even more unexpected way: the mobility of the ears used as fans increased in elephants , and this led to the development of sclerotic diseases of the vessels that feed the ear. Cases of cardiovascular diseases, abscesses of the oral cavity, have become more frequent. The crisis erupted into a severe and prolonged drought in 1971-1972. Then in Tsavo in the valley of the Galana River, about 6 thousand elephants died (almost a third of the population). However, already in 1973, the number of elephants in Tsavo increased again to 20. Environmentalists have proposed to regulate the number of elephants in the parks of East Africa - and activities to shoot animals began. Back in 1967, about 300 elephants were destroyed in Tsavo, and in 1973 - about 900. Shooting of animals is carried out very carefully. The surviving individuals become too shy, so they hide from people. And not found wounded animals become aggressive. Within national parks, shooting is carried out only by park employees, from vehicles, usually at night. You can get into the national park only through a specially organized entrance - a massive gate through which two entrances pass, blocked by barriers. There is also a ticket office, a checkpoint. The gate is decorated with the emblem of Tsavo - two huge black profiles of rhinos. At the first fork in the park, there is a stone monument with a road sign and a list of rules for visitors. From the instructions, you can learn that you can not drive close to animals, cross the road to elephants, get out of the car, drive off the road. In other words, the administration does not take responsibility for the safety of visitors! Fans of independent travel can drive through the parks almost without restrictions, only it is forbidden to drive at a speed higher than 20 km/h in order to avoid hitting animals. In addition, there are more than 30 airfields in Tsavo Park. However, not all areas can be reached by tourists: in some areas there are no roads, and visitors are not allowed to go there. Hotels and campsites are built in places of constant concentration of animals, you can watch them for hours directly from the balconies of hotels. In many parks, a powerful electric "moon" hangs near waterholes, which attracts animals to itself with its radiance (due to this, tourists get additional time to observe animals, especially since the night near the equator lasts almost half a day). Tsavo Park is visited annually by more than 250 thousand tourists. The Tsavo Science Center is a few kilometers from the hotel. It is a whole town with a laboratory, garages, workshops, warehouses and cottages for researchers. The warehouse for scientific materials is a spacious yard with an area of at least half a hectare. There, in the open air, hundreds and thousands of elephant skulls lie, and multi-storey racks are crowded with rhinoceros skulls. Author: Yudina N.A.
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