Masai Giraffe Population Distribution, Threats, Habitat Suitability and Connectivity in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania
| dc.contributor.author | Muthiuru, Amos Chege | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-02-03T13:34:56Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-02-03T13:34:56Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-11 | |
| dc.description | Supervisors: 1. Eunice Kairu 2.Jemimah Simbauni 3.Philip Muruthi | |
| dc.description.abstract | Over the last three decades, the giraffe population in Africa has experienced a significant decline of nearly 40%, attributed to various threats such as severe poaching for bushmeat, human-wildlife conflicts, diseases, habitat fragmentation, and loss due to the increase in human settlement and associated land use changes and linear infrastructure. To be able to institute and prioritize effective conservation measures for the giraffes, it is necessary to identify population distribution, threat hotspots, suitable habitats, and their connecting corridors especially in multiple use landscapes. This study aimed to characterize Masai giraffe habitat and distribution in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania in the transboundary Tsavo-Mkomazi Landscape: identifying threats, suitable habitats and their linkage zones and population structure distribution under different land uses. Road surveys, ranger patrols, aerial surveys and remotely sensed data were integrated into Google Earth Engine (GEE) to develop species distribution models. The Suitability index obtained from this analysis was used as resistance surface to model landscape connectivity using Circuitscape in Arc GIS 10.5. Threats and location of occurrence were mapped from ranger’s patrol data and road surveys. Group associations were analyzed using SPSS. The results showed that land uses did not influence mean giraffe herd sizes and herd types significantly (p>0.05). However, age composition and herd types were significantly different between conservancies and small-scale farms during the wet season respectively (p<0.05). Poaching was the main threat to Massai giraffes accounting for 49% of total deaths of the identified carcasses in the landscape. Although ranches and conservancies were the most affected by the threats, they remained the least cost paths and corridors of high importance with low resistance to giraffe movement connecting from Mkomazi National Park (Tanzania) to South Kitui National Reserve (Kenya). The potentially suitable giraffe habitat was 15,002 km2 within the landscape with 17% of it being outside protected areas. Capacity building of ranch owners is recommended to address giraffe poaching. Transboundary collaborations, participatory land use planning, spatial planning at County, ranches/conservancy level should be done to ensure corridors and dispersal areas are included in land use planning and integrated with other conservation compatible land use practices to safeguard giraffes in the Tsavo-Mkomazi Landscape. Additionally, equal security measures should be deployed in protected and non protected areas to deter poaching and reclaim South Kitui National reserve. Since climate change mediates Masai giraffe movement and group organization, this study recommends deep understanding of climate impact on the Masai giraffe distribution and future use of the community dominated landscapes and designed underpasses with the major infrastructure in their entire range. | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | AWF and the Society for Conservation of Biology-African section student grant of 2022 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/29506 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Kenyatta University | |
| dc.title | Masai Giraffe Population Distribution, Threats, Habitat Suitability and Connectivity in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania | |
| dc.type | Thesis |