HIROLAS
HIROLAS
O
ur pilot circles to find
Masalani’s red-dirt airstrip
and its lone windsock in
the drought-stricken scrubland, 130 kilometres south
of the Somali border. I spot
two dusty vehicles parked
beside Ian Craig’s single-engine Super
Cub as we touch down. It’s late July and
warm, with whipping winds.
I’ve flown to Kenya’s remote Ijara district to see the hirola, a little-known antelope with lyrate horns and an elongated,
cartoonish face. Specifically, I’m here to
find out how Craig, an ex-professional
hunter turned wildlife saviour, plans to
help the area’s pastoralist community prevent its tiny population of hirolas from
being sent into extinction by habitat loss,
predation and poaching.
With few ways for Kenya’s rural citizens
to benefit from the wild animals on their
land (all game is owned by the government), there’s little motivation to protect
them. Animal populations are shrinking
alarmingly – according to a recent study
published in the Journal of Zoology, the
country’s renowned Masai Mara National
Reserve has lost two-thirds of its wildlife in
the past 30 years. Without a radical
change in policy, few animals may survive
for future tourists to see.
And a change in policy is what’s
behind the effort to save the hirola: a
profound shift toward community-based
conservation. For decades, top-down
conservation policies have ceded little
actual control to the local people. The
four-year-old Ishaqbini Conservancy is
an exception – key elements of it are in
the hands of local Somalis.
in kenya the
ANTELOPES PLAY
Hands up if you’ve heard of the hirola. If not, you’re unlikely to ever see one – the last
remaining species of a once-plentiful genus of antelopes, it totters on the perilous edge
of extinction. Or does it? Plans are afoot to save this revered beast. Conservationist
John Frederick Walker investigates a new approach to community-based conservation
that could turn the tide for vanishing species.
TEXT BY JOHN FREDERICK WALKER
KENNETH COE
48
africa geographic
•
DECEMBER 2012
I
’ve arrived with Kenneth Coe, a member of the Advisory Council of The
Nature Conservancy’s Africa Program,
the principal outside backer of the
hirola rescue. Craig, stocky and sandyhaired with a ready smile, greets us as we
climb out of our Cessna. With a nod to
local culture, he’s wearing the patterned
sarong that Somali men wrap around
their waists, along with tattered canvas
shoes and a checked shirt.
Born in Kenya, Craig has had a career
that reflects the changing attitudes toward
the continent’s wildlife. In his early 20s he
was a licensed professional hunter and ran
Lewa, his family’s 16 000-hectare cattle
ranch near Mount Kenya. Later, he oversaw the transformation of the ranch into a
J o h n F re de ri c k Wa l ke r
rhino sanctuary and helped found the
Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), an umbrella organisation of 15 communitybased conservancies, including Ishaqbini.
C
oe wrestles duffel bags of photographic gear from the plane’s belly;
he’s hoping to upgrade his growing
bank of wildlife images. Alongside
his career in investments, he developed a
deep passion for Africa’s remaining wild
lands. He’s made 15 trips to Africa, visiting
projects across the continent to find what
works and what doesn’t, and why.
Hirolas often follow
pastoralists and their
herds... [For the people],
the antelopes’ presence is
a sign of good fortune
‘This town grew from a small village,’
Omar Tawane, regional coordinator for
the NRT, explains above the engine noise
of his truck, indicating a tall tower that
provides Masalani, a cluster of tin-roofed
buildings and sandy streets, with Internet
access. But herding and livestock trading
are still the way of life for this overwhelmingly pastoralist area. That age-old culture
is on view in the thatched-hut villages and
vast open range of the surrounding countryside, traversed by isolated herds of
scrawny Boran cattle.
One of the nation’s 70-odd ethnic groups,
Kenya’s 900 000 Somalis comprise roughly
two per cent of its population. In this district, Somalis are predominant. At midday,
Tawane and I sit under the rustling leaves of
ABOVE Conservationist Ian Craig (on the roof of
the vehicle) and Kenneth Coe of The Nature
Conservancy’s Africa Program scan the dry
landscape of north-eastern Kenya for hirolas.
OPPOSITE Lyre-shaped horns and white
markings in the shape of spectacles distinguish
the hirola, one of Africa’s most endangered
antelopes. At the Ishaqbini Community Hirola
Conservancy, attempts are being made by the
local Somali community to ensure the future of
this striking animal.
a garas tree, the district’s ubiquitous evergreen, in the shady compound of Hussein
Nur, the chairman of the local peace committee. The minarets of Masalani’s mosque
are visible over the windbreak fence.
‘We are Kenyan Somalis. We are not shifta
[bandits]. We are not pirates. We are not terrorists,’ emphasises Ahmed Bare, who sits
on the board of the Ishaqbini Conservancy.
Bare and Nur are eager to distinguish
their peaceful Sunni Muslim community
from the media stereotype of lawless,
warlord-ruled Somalis elsewhere in the
Horn of Africa.
As we talk, a picture emerges of these
pastoralists’ attitudes toward wildlife.
There’s little poaching by local Somalis; for
cultural reasons, eating game is frowned
upon. Tawane explains that when you see
hirolas, it means grazing conditions for
livestock are good. In fact, these timid animals often follow pastoralists and their
herds, a centuries-old pattern of behaviour
that affords them partial protection
against predators and poachers.
The hirola’s presence, Tawane tells me,
is a sign of good fortune. ‘In Ishaqbini,’
Bare adds, ‘we have a plan for the hirolas

to be conserved.’
w w w. a f r i c a g e o g r a p h i c . c o m
49
HIROLAS
HIROLAS
J o h n F re de ri c k Wa l ke r
over the huge rolls of wire netting and
stacks of gum-tree posts in the bush.
‘We’ll capture any leopards, lions, cheetahs and other predators in there and put
them outside,’ he explains.
The Somali community
determined the size of the
19 000-hectare conservancy
on the eastern bank of the
Tana River
kenneth coe
U
Masai
Mara
SOMALIA
N
KENYA
• Masalani
Nairobi
Ishaqbini
Community
Hirola
Conservancy
NR
Mt Kilimanjaro
Tsavo
East NP
Mombasa •
INDIAN
OCEAN
TANZANIA
OPPOSITE The Tana, Kenya’s longest river,
meanders through the country’s North Eastern
Province in a series of huge twists and turns.
ABOVE Women use nets to fish in Lake Ishaqbini.
Inadequate rainfall and lack of flooding in parts of
northern Kenya is causing rivers to dry up, and
along with them a primary source of food. Hirolas
are safe though; eating game is frowned upon by
local Somali Inhabitants.
50
africa geographic
•
DECEMBER 2012
T
he snuffing out of the hirola
Beatragus hunteri would mean the
disappearance of a three-millionyear-old evolutionary lineage, the
once-widespread genus Beatragus, of
which the hirola is now the sole representative. There may be no more than 300 of
these antelopes left.
By 1996 the hirola population had
declined to some 1 500 individuals, leading to the formation of a task force headed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to
capture and transfer three dozen hirolas
to Tsavo East National Park, the second
such attempt. The intervention became a
political issue, prompting the KWS to
open an office in Masalani, signalling its
commitment to conserving the antelope
in its original habitat.
‘I’m not aware of many places in Africa
where this kind of thing would even be
thinkable,’ Ian Craig says of the district
community’s plan to create a fenced-in,
livestock-free sanctuary for its endangered
antelope. Craig didn’t seek out this project;
he stumbled across it on a 2006 trip to
the Tana River. The year before, several
Ijara groups had sought support for a
hirola conservancy. A year later, with
Craig’s input, the Ishaqbini Community
Hirola Conservancy had been added to the
NRT’s roster.
Setting aside land to protect the hirola
proved ‘challenging and difficult to digest’,
Tawane tells me. The elders, representing
more than 3 500 pastoralists, held lengthy
meetings before reaching the decision to
zone their open pastures to prevent overgrazing, seeking a balance between how
much land was needed for their livestock,
how much for buffer areas and how much
for the hirolas. The Somali community
determined the size of the 19 000-hectare
conservancy on the eastern bank of the
Tana River. It took three years just to
agree on the boundaries of the livestockrestricted area, which were chosen after the
board accepted biologists’ findings that
this prime hirola habitat already harboured about 150 of the antelopes.
But the hirolas weren’t flourishing. It
was puzzling. After all, by 2010, poaching
had been largely suppressed and grass
cover was returning. It turned out that
predation was taking a bigger bite out of
their numbers than expected: 20 carcasses
were found that year. Analysis of carnivore scat showed that the antelopes had
become a preferred prey of the area’s
lions. In fact, Craig had a very smelly
hirola skull with bits of rotted flesh hanging off it in the back of his open vehicle,
a rank leftover from a pride’s recent meal.
The antelopes face other threats, too:
leopards, spotted hyaenas, African wild
dogs and cheetahs. With no other viable
options, everything pointed to a separate
predator-proof sanctuary inside the conservancy as the best way to enable the
animals to recover their numbers.
‘First,’ says Craig, ‘we build the sanctuary and close it off.’ I join Coe to look
Current thinking is to net the hirolas,
immobilise them and truck them to holding pens. Once they settle down, they’ll
be released in the sanctuary to, hopefully,
breed like rabbits.
’H
e’s a candidate for the sanctuary,’ Craig says softly, rolling
the Land Rover to a stop. The
first hirola we’ve spotted, a ram
looks bigger than an impala. His coat
glows coppery in the afternoon light. Coe
takes multiple photos. I admire the hirola’s
horns. Heavily ringed at their base, they
curve back and then forward; viewed from
the front they asssume a perfect lyreshape. The elongated face features high-set
eyes echoed by a set of black dots – they’re
actually enlarged pre-orbital glands –
where tears would form. Stranger still are
its ‘spectacles’, white lines that circle and
join the animal’s eyes.
With the clock ticking for the animals,
the Ishaqbini Conservancy came up with a
five-year plan and a US$2-million budget,
including nearly US$500 000 for electrified predator-proof fencing alone. Fortunately, The Nature Conservancy – the
largest environmental non-profit in the US
– has stepped in to become, by far, Ishaqbini Conservancy’s largest contributor. ‘It wasn’t an easy decision, given the
cost,’ said David Banks, who directs the
organisation’s Africa programme from
Arusha, Tanzania. ‘If we can save the hirola,
that’s great; if we can expand the conservation model to a whole new part of Kenya,
that’s even better.’ The Nature Conservancy
has committed to raising US$800 000 to
cover the cost of setting up the sanctuary.
Asked about the part his donations have
played in all this, Coe describes himself as
‘seriously allergic’ to donor-promoting
publicity and won’t comment on his anonymous contributions.
The global motivation for brink-ofextinction rescues clearly stems from the
unease over, and the desire to slow
down, the cascading worldwide rate of
species loss. But the immediate impetus
is something else. As Coe points out, the
stars are aligned for this project. The
Somalis here care about the hirola,
there’s a minimum of poaching, and
outsiders who have learned from the
mistakes of the past want to help. If this
isn’t a conservation effort worth getting
behind, what is? L
ater in camp I study what’s left of
the hirola head that had been
decaying in the back of Craig’s

truck. The foetid skull, now
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51
HIROLAS
Hirola update
T
he highly anticipated hirola capture
– a crack team effort by KWS, NRT,
Ol Pejeta and Lewa conservancy experts
equipped with four aircraft – took place
in August 2012. Selected herds of hirolas
in the sparse bush east of the sanctuary were spotted by air and driven by
helicopter into a system of long, parallel
nets strung by workers between distant
trees. Within 30 minutes of capture,
helicopters transported the antelopes
two at a time to temporary holding pens
in the 2 740-hectare sanctuary (below).
Crews set baited box-traps for any
large predators (hyaenas, leopards
and cheetahs) still lurking inside, then
released them outside the fence.
The six-day operation included plenty
of drama. On the second day of the capture, Ian Craig fell from a water tower,
breaking seven ribs and puncturing a
lung. He had to be airlifted to hospital
in Nairobi. Still, that setback failed to
dampen his excitement at the ‘fantastic
job’ the team accomplished. Reached at
home, where he was looking forward to
a complete recovery, he described it as
‘a wonderful success, well exceeding my
highest hopes and indeed expectations’.
Amazingly, despite the hirola’s hypersensitivity to capture stress, none of the
animals died. With 48, including some
pregnant females, now in the sanctuary
(with giraffes, zebras, topi, oryx, lesser
kudu and other herbivores for company),
there’s every expectation of calves.
Building up hirola numbers is critical
to the future of the Ishaqbini Conservancy and its community-owned and
-operated sanctuary that now holds
10 per cent of the world’s remaining
hirolas. JFW
kenneth coe
cleaned, is bone-white save for two black
keratin twists of horn protruding above
the empty eye sockets.
If we can save the hirola,
that’s great; if we can
expand the conservation
model to a whole new part
of Kenya, that’s even better
I photograph it from various angles,
then zoom in for a close-up of the sculptural skull, cropping out the lake and tree
to emphasize this antelope memento mori.
As I think about it, ‘zooming in’ captures
in visual terms what’s wrong with so
much in African conservation: overconcentration on tightly cropped animal
portraiture and not enough wide-angle,
big-picture views accounting for issues
that inexorably frame what can be done
with wildlife. Omitting the people that
live alongside these creatures from the picture fatally distorts the true image.
Mi ch ael Dalton - Smith/ Dig ital Cr ossin g P r od uc tion s
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africa geographic
•
DECEMBER 2012
John Frederick Wa lker
ABOVE A hirola skull.
TOP The Ishaqbini Community Hirola
Conservancy represents a shift in conservation
thinking. Here, the Somali community members
manage the reserve, moulding the solutions to
benefit their lifestyle and the wildlife.
Earlier, Craig had told me that the NRT’s
‘common-sense model’ didn’t just mean
getting rural peoples to be involved in the
conservation solutions the Trust sought;
these people had to ‘drive the solutions’
for them to work and be allowed to shape
them for their own benefit.
This shift in conservation thinking has
taken decades to come about. But perhaps
it’s also taking hold in time to answer, at
least in part, the ominous threat of rapidly
shrinking wildlife habitat in Africa.
Join Africa Geographic Travel’s ‘Walking with
Giants’ trip to Tsavo East, the recipient of a
number of hirolas translocated from northeast Kenya. See opposite for details.