In silence and solitude we traverse the scrub-specked grasslands of Kenya’s famed Masai Mara in search of an elusive leopard  spotted the previous day.

The rains have begun and newly formed rivers and gorges pockmark a terrain sketched with the region’s emblematic acacia trees. Shuka-clad Masai tend cattle on conservancy land fringing the national reserve and copious wildlife blankets the expanse. But few of the roughly 700,000 tourists who descend annually upon one of the Seven New Wonders of the Natural World remain. Soon, shuttered camps will reopen and from July through October crowds will return to witness the Great Migration of countless wildebeest, zebra and other game transiting from Tanzania’s adjoining Serengeti National Park.

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MARA ELEPHANT PROJECT
In 2011 the Mara Elephant Project was established to combat the dual dilemma impacting Masai Mara’s elephant population. Founded by Richard Roberts, owner of two exclusive eponymous tented camps, the non-profit works with such organizations as the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), US-based Escape Foundation, and Save The Elephants to monitor collared elephants and patrol the territory. Although MEP maintains two roving security teams, a network of paid informants, and addresses animal casualties through a veterinarian provided by the Sheldrick Foundation, air coverage and additional units are desperately needed to adequately safeguard the region.  As such, I’m happy to know that my conservancy fees and lodging tariff help support these crucial efforts.

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The small plane hovers low over the sprawling scrub-pocked grassland’s of Kenya’s famed Masai Mara, a tapestry of grazing wildlife looming ever larger as we approach the muddy airstrip. Flat-topped acacia trees dance under a metallic sky that threatens rain, majestic elephants and towering giraffes shadowed in an endless wave of distant horizons. The few passengers onboard scatter to a few remaining open camps, the world’s “Seventh New Natural Wonder” all but deserted in low season. I’m quite happy, though, to be a Lone Ranger in God’s Wild Kingdom, dodging the crowds that flood the Mara each July to October during the Great Migration of wildebeest, zebras and other plains game to and from Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.

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