Ecology & Conservation

We got into Walking Safaris because of our interest in ecology and conservation. Our property, Tumaren, is dedicated exclusively to the conservation of wildlife and protects 3,000 acres of grasslands and Acacia woodlands. In addition to our own property we also lease another 7,500 acres and patrol and manage these along with many thousands of acres of neighbouring land.

When we first purchased Tumaren, the wildlife had been competing for many years with livestock for the available grass and browse. The numbers of plains game were low and we only infrequently saw Reticulated Giraffe and predators. Today we have huge herds of plains game and Giraffe as well as the predators who depend on them. We host all the large cats now, including Lions, Leopards and Cheetahs. The Elephants when we began were very nervous and typically passed our property without spending much time on it. Today large herds of Elephants spend most of the year on Tumaren and many animals give birth within our boundaries, a sign of their new found comfort. Endangered species such as Grevy’s Zebra do very well on the grasses on Tumaren and we take pride in the high numbers we get in our area each year during the annual Grevy Zebra Rally (census). Our Wilddogs who are also critically Endangered across Africa are beginning to come back as well with several sightings on our most recent safaris.

Besides active wildlife management we also try to make decisions that don’t cause harm for wildlife such as; we farm organically many of the vegetables and herbs we use on safari, we don’t use one time use plastic water bottles, and we minimize our water use to save as much as possible for the land and the animals that depend on it.

It has been hugely rewarding to rehabilitate a small part of Africa and return a small piece of territory to wilderness and wildlife.