Kenya Wildlife Service

The morning began much like the others in Mombasa. I woke up, got ready, went to breakfast, and was picked up by my cab driver. I was welcomed into the office, took my seat, and worked on miscellaneous tasks before Miriam arrived. When Miriam came she took me to a scientist in the Natural Products office who told me all about the program. As explained in an earlier blog, Natural Products is in charge of physical preservation and value of fish. Through different mechanisms, the program is working to decrease spoilage and help fishermen gain the greatest amount of income for the fish they catch. Many problems arise with rural fishermen. The boats they use are small and not equipped with proper storage for the fish they catch. Therefore, outreach programs of KMFRI are working to educate the fishermen on ways to decrease their spoilage. Such ways include gutting the fish before arriving to shore and using methods of handling approved by supermarkets to sell fish there. As of now, there is high demand for freshly caught fish. When there is not, however, the Natural Products team is working on different ways to keep the fish good for the longest time. This includes different ways to sundry the fish, usually involving solar panels and a greenhouse effect. Due to the humidity of the area, creating a greenhouse with the fish inside may not actually dry out the fish. For this reason, fans are usually inside of these units. The scientist told me how the fish populations near the shores are diminishing so they are encouraging fishermen to learn deep sea fishing. With declining populations, I inquired why fish farming wasn’t used. The scientist explained to me the infrastructure is not good in the rural communities so fish farms are hard to maintain. All of this relates back to food insecurity and how the problem is arising and prevalent throughout the area. It is good to know the government is investing in substantial research to help the people. I am not sure if the solutions are good, but they are solutions none the less.

In the afternoon Miriam took me for a visit at a local Kenya Wildlife Service office. I have used many of their services, with visiting their national parks and had always assumed they were run by the government. To my surprise, some of their funding comes from the government but a majority comes from outside donors. Some of which is my expensive park entry fees as a tourist. Without an official appointment, I was sent to some office to get an overview. Of all the offices I was sent to throughout the week, this was by far the most interesting. The man explained to me different monitoring programs Kenya had in their national parks. He showed me a recent experiment where cameras were set up to monitor the animals and record those spotted. Through this project, the researchers even identified a new type of shrew. They also caught poachers on camera. I’m not sure how exactly they will track them down from here, but this seems to be a step in the right direction. I had a look at the poacher pictures and got the chills looking straight into the eyes of one who had spotted the camera. The man also explained relocation of different elephants due to over population and elephants ruining local farmer’s crops. The task of relocating over two hundred elephants takes a very detailed plan. In respect to marine parks, I learned about their monitoring of the coral reefs and how different species act as indicator species. The hundreds of sea urchins spotted yesterday are attributed to the decline and over fishing of the trigger fish; the sights are now making sense.

On my way back to the hotel, I was approached by some locals, so I thought. I usually try not to interact with anyone on the street I am unfamiliar with or have not been introduced to. These people asked me if I was from London. Having been warned the other day not to tell people I am from the States, I simply said, “Yes,” with hopes that the people would leave me alone. When they responded, “We’re from there too, which part of London are you from?” I had realized I had backed myself into a hole. I’m not very good at lying to begin with, so I was almost at a loss of words. I stumbled for the right ones saying something about being from the central area. They looked confused. Then the lady asked me which zone I was from. I had to take a shot in the dark at this one; zones could be a number, color, or letter. Quickly making my decision I went with a number, and kept it low just in case there weren’t many. Somehow I had stumbled into the right trap because the lady responded, “Oh. We are from that zone as well, just on a visit in Kenya.” After that the family walked away from me, and I have never been more relieved to be left in my life. Lesson learned: do your research before lying about coming from a place you don’t.