Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is a national park in Loitoktok District in Kajiado County, Kenya.[1] It is 39,206 ha (392.06 km2) in size at the core of an 8,000 km2 (3,100 sq mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border.[2] It harbours 400 species of birds including water birds like pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hamerkop and 47 raptor species. The local people are mainly Maasai.[3]
| Amboseli National Park | |
|---|---|
  Location of Amboseli National Park  Location of Amboseli National Park within Kenya | |
| Location | Loitoktok District, Kajiado County, Kenya |
| Nearest city | Nairobi |
| Coordinates | 02°38′29″S 37°14′53″E / 2.64139°S 37.24806°E |
| Area | 392 km2 (151 sq mi) |
| Established |
|
| Visitors | 120,000 estimated (in 2006) |
| Governing body | Kenya Wildlife Service, Olkejuado County Council and the Maasai community |
The park protects two of the five main swamps and includes a dried-up Pleistocene lake and semiarid vegetation.
History
editIn 1883, Jeremy Thompson was the first European to penetrate the feared Maasai region known as Empusel (meaning 'salty, dusty place' in Maa). He, too, was astonished by the fantastic array of wildlife and the contrast between the arid areas of the dry lake bed and the oasis of the swamps, a contrast that persists today.
Amboseli was set aside as the Southern Reserve for the Maasai in 1906 but returned to local control as a game reserve in 1948. Gazetted a national park in 1974 to protect the core of this unique ecosystem, it was declared a UNESCO site in 1991. The park earned $3.5 m (€2.9 m) in 2005. On 29 September 2005, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared that control of the park should pass from the Kenya Wildlife Service to the Olkejuado County Council and the Maasai tribe. Some observers saw this as a political favour in advance of a vote on a new Kenyan constitution; legal challenges are currently in court. The degazetting would divert park admission fees directly to the county council with shared benefits to the Maasai immediately surrounding the park.
Wildlife
editAmboseli National Park was home to Echo, the most researched elephant in the world, and the subject of many books and documentaries, followed for almost four decades by American conservationist Cynthia Moss. Echo died in 2009 when she was about 60 years old.[4]
Amboseli National Park is home to African bush elephant, Cape buffalo, impala, lion, cheetah, spotted hyena, Masai giraffe, Grant's zebra, and blue wildebeest. A host of large and small birds occur too.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "County Government of Kajiado – Naboisho ang, engolon ang". Retrieved 28 May 2020.
- ^ "World Database on Protected Areas: Amboseli Nationalpark". sea.unep-wcmc.org. Retrieved 28 July 2008.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Amboseli National Park". Archived from the original on 3 September 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
- ^ "Elephants in Amboseli". Animals Around The Globe. Animals Around The Globe. 2019.