Wildebeest Migration Underway, But Mara River Nearly Dried Up Late In Rainy Season - Independent

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The quintessential image of the migration is the crossing of the Mara river: the surprising vulnerability of the wildebeest horde as they scramble down one bank and up the other, their fierce horns and grey-bearded heads turning nervously in search of predators. It's a spectacle routinely referred to as the seventh wonder of the world and one that draws tens of thousands of top-dollar tourists to both banks of the Mara every year.

But this year there is something missing – the water. "This is the first year we've ever seen the river this low," says Will Deed, who works with the Mara Conservancy, a not-for-profit group which manages one third of this huge reserve.

"In parts there's just small channel, one or one-and-a-half feet deep." In the same stretches of the river last year the water was as deep as five feet and "the wildebeest and zebra were up to their chests or necks, or even swimming," he adds.

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The drying-up of the river, which should be at its highest point at the end East Africa's long rainy season, is one of a series of ominous signs that conservationists believe could add up to an ecological disaster. The sun-scorched boulders that ring the shore of Kenya's Lake Baringo are cut by a sharp brown line, running horizontally, that shows the watermark of the past. Beneath the dark divide is an expanse of white stone freshly bared to the elements as the lake has receded dramatically. A report released last week by Kenya's Water Resource Management Authority has dismissed any hopes that these phenomena could be unrelated. In the report, Simon Mwangi, the authority's Rift Valley regional technical manager, said that the River Perkerra, which feeds Lake Baringo, and the Malewa which drains into Lake Naivasha, were at their lowest levels on record.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/the-wildebeest-river-is-running-dry-1769959.html