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The last eight months were the best part of the MRes program for me. After ending the intensive four months of lectures, assignments and exams, it was time to begin our research projects.<\/p>\n
My research focused on elephant movement and resource utilisation in a fenced environment. I carried out my research in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Kenya, under the supervision of Dr. Zeke Davidson, Marwell Wildlife and Professor Patrick Doncaster, University of Southampton. I spent ten weeks in Lewa carrying out field work for data collection, from late March until the end of May. It was lovely to be back in Lewa for the second time and it was great to have fellow MRes student, Beth, with me, whose research was also based on Lewa.<\/p>\n
Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is a fenced protected area with purposely built fence gaps to facilitate wildlife movement. Lewa\u2019s elephant Loxodonta africana<\/em><\/em> population has increased in the recent past and there is concern that damage caused to plants by the elephants are affecting the availability of vegetation for Lewa\u2019s black rhino Diceros bicornis<\/em> population. Exclusion zones have been established, separated by a two strand electric fence, to protect rhino browse. This fence is set up about 2m above the ground to prevent elephants passing through but allowing for the entry of smaller herbivores.<\/p>\n Unfortunately elephants keep breaking the exclusion\u00a0fences and are continuing to cause damage to the plants within these exclusion zones. There\u00a0are also concerns that insecurity events such as poaching, road banditry, livestock theft etc. occurring in surrounding areas might be driving elephants towards Lewa. Therefore, my study comprised of several components: one part looked at information from existing databases maintained by Lewa Wildlife Conservancy on elephant movement through fence gaps and on insecurity incidents to determine the effect of hostile events in surrounding areas on elephant movement. I also compared speed of elephant movement within Lewa and outside, using GPS collar data provided by Save the Elephants organisation from their long term elephant monitoring project.\u00a0 The other part involved a vegetation sampling survey in exclusion zones to determine the intensity of damage to plants and to compare how elephants and rhinos utilise woody vegetation. I also carried out camera trapping at exclusion zone fences to try to capture fence breaking incidents.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\t\t