We recently published 5 years of research on wildebeest mass drownings in the Mara River. We plan to continue studying this phenomenon for the foreseeable future, both to document the occurrence and size of the drownings and to continue understanding their influence on the river ecosystem. On July 19, 500 wildebeest were crossing the Mara River near the lower bridge, and 150 drowned. This is a relatively small drowning compared to some others we have seen and compared to the annual mean of 6,250 we have documented over the years. However, we're still early in the migration season, and the river has been unseasonably low, making it easy for the wildebeest to cross without incident. So, we'll see... We're in the field until the end of the migration in November, so we'll keep count.
Posted by Amanda at 1:56 PM Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Car parts and cappuccinos 450 lbs. of gear We headed back to Kenya in June for a 6 month field season. We had to purchase a plane ticket for Lily this year, since she's now over 2. The one upside... 3 extra bags on her ticket! Of course, about 2 of those bags were filled with her field wardrobe and clothes, but we managed to get an extra field bag in there!
Posted by Amanda at 10:47 AM The Mze After 8 years of faithful service (okay, maybe not always faithful, but certainly adventurous!), our old, white Land Rover was finally due for a new coat of paint. Here she is, looking pretty sharp in her new dark green coat. Now it's difficult to tell this one apart from our newer Land Rover purchased last year, which is also green, so we've taken to calling this one the Mze (the elder) and the newer one the Kijana (the youth). Publishing our Research on Wildebeest Mass Drownings The first time I witnessed a drowning happening

Some videos of avian scavengers using carcasses

Chris's observations of a huge drowning happening Friday, January 20, 2017

The Dry Season

We're heading into the dry season in the Mara, which generally runs from January until early-mid March when the long rains come. Geemi just sent us some pictures of the Mara River, showing how low the river is. You can actually see the river level on the real-time river gauge on the top right of our blog (under Mara River Water Level). Chris built this river gauge using low-cost Arduino sensors, and it uploads real-time data on the river every 15 minutes. When the arrow is in the red zone, the river is lower than the minimum sustainable flow levels that were identified in the Environmental Flow Assessment for the Mara. You can tell from looking at these pictures that the river is well below where it normally is, and the dry season is just getting started. Hopefully we'll get a few big rains to help fill things up before we head into February...
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