Carmel Magazine

112-117 Doug Steakley-AFRICA_Feature 4/22/13 8:20 PM Page 2 T his collection of photographs is drawn from many trips that I have made to Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia over the past few years. I hope that these images will reflect the awe that I experience while I am there. In spite of the encroach- ing population, the national game reserves in Africa remain unique and primitive. Although the parks in Africa provide a degree of safety for the multi- tude of animals that reside there, conditions are changing quickly. It is quite possible that the wild animals that inhabit the open savannah and jungle environments will not be there for the next generation. Wildlife in Africa is continually being threatened by several factors that have already drastically reduced their numbers. While you have been reading this text, Africa has lost another elephant. Elephants are being killed at the rate of about three an hour, 70 a day, or 25,000 a year! • In 1979, there were 1.2 million elephants in Africa. • In 2009, only 470,000 elephants remained alive in Africa. Lions are also being hunted to extinction. Forty years ago there were hundreds of thousands of lions in Africa, now there are fewer than 25,000. It is likely that lions will disappear in large areas of Africa over the next 20 years. When lions roar—both females and males—it can be heard from distance up to five miles. Now it is questionable whether this roar will be heard by our children or grandchildren. In 2010, over 300 rhinos were poached in South Africa alone. Since the 1960s, their population has decreased by 92 percent. While ele- phants are killed for their tusks, rhinos are killed for their horns, which are believed to have medicinal and aphrodisiac value. Apart from these larger animals, there has been a 90 percent decline in the more common migratory species such as wildebeests and zebras. Contrary to other wildlife in Africa, the critically endangered moun- tain gorilla is a success story. Mountain gorillas live in two regions of east Africa—the large Virunga Volcanoes Massif, a rain forest which straddles three countries: Rwanda, Uganda and The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); and further north in The Bwindi Impenetrable National Forest in Uganda. In 2002, there were three gorilla family groups living in Rwanda, today there are fourteen. In 2010, a census was taken of the population of these gorillas and it had increased to 786, up from about 250 in the 1980s. In spite of the current situation in Africa, there are many individuals and groups that are dedicated and working hard to preserve wildlife in Africa. While on safari you will always see large numbers of a wide vari- ety of mammals and birds. In fact, eco-tourism in Africa is an essential ingredient for supporting the large national parks and rangers that patrol them. There are few experiences in the world that can match a safari drive at dawn in the Serengeti Plains of Tanzania or the Maasai Mara Reserve in Kenya. C ARMEL MAGAZINE•SPRING/SUMMER 2013 113

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