The 2020 Great Grevy’s Rally
January 19, 2021
January 19, 2021
This month Marwell took part in the 2020 Great Grevy’s Rally. The Great Grevy’s Rally is a national census of Grevy’s zebra. The rally brings together the Kenya Wildlife Service with conservation organisations, scientists, landowners, conservancies and members of the public for two days to count the endangered Grevy’s zebra across its range in northern Kenya.
Participants will drive through designated areas and use GPS-enabled cameras to photograph the right side of each Grevy’s zebra. Sophisticated stripe recognition software is then used to analyse the thousands of pictures for individual stripe patterns and to provide an estimated population size of Grevy’s zebra in northern Kenya.
By comparing the results to those of previous rallies, we can assess whether the overall Grevy’s zebra population is stable, growing or decreasing, which will then inform future conservation and management initiatives.
Marwell has two team members in Kenya, Lizbeth and Enrita, who will be leading our Marwell scouts in two areas of the rally; Samburu and Marsabit. We hope to share more news on this soon. Watch this space…