Drought Sensitive Species Beginning to Return

In the drought of 2000/2001 the species that were hit the hardest in Laikipia were the following mammals: Warthog, Waterbuck, Hippo, and Buffalo. Since then it has been the warthogs that have sustained the best rebound with waterbuck following. Buffalo in our area have been greatly helped by larger herds that live south of us on higher ground near the Loldiga mountains. Still we only see Buffalo in small herds of threes and fours and typically they are all bulls with family herds only coming onto us occasionally. Hippos have taken a very long time to return. Every once and a while we have a couple pass by Tumaren but the do not seem to stay for very long. Evidently there are nice deep pools that the few individual that are still around prefer. Despite that we have seen young hippos with mothers and waterbuck these days are frequently encountered in groups of 6 or 7. Its nice to see all these guys beginning to return.