Knowing which animals live where is critical to planning effective conservation. To help set up good programs in Uganda, we set out to confirm whether one particular subspecies of monkey, the Dodinga Hills guereza, was calling this country home. Here’s what we found.
There are two species of warthog (Kiswahili name ‘ngiri’) and both occur in Kenya; the common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) and the desert warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus). As mentioned in our earlier blogs (e.g., ‘Quest for Kenya´s Desert Warthog‘), our mission during this project is to better understand the biogeography and ecology of the desert warthog, one of Africa’s least known large mammals. During this project we also, opportunistically, collected data on other large mammals—particularly the primates.
The Huri Hills, a remote region of large lava cones, is located between the Chalbi Desert and the Kenyan-Ethiopian border in central-north Kenya. These hills rise about 300 meters (985 feet) above the lava plateau, reaching 1524 meters (5000 feet) above sea level. Just north of the Huri Hills, separated by a descending plain of black-cotton-soil, lies the granitic Mount Forole (1887 meters; 6200 feet). This sacred mountain marks the Kenyan-Ethiopian border.
Turkana is Kenya’s most remote district. Located west of Lake Turkana in the north-west corner of the country, Turkana District has been high on our list of ‘warthog survey sites’ for years. When you think ‘desert’, you think ‘Turkana’…a logical place to search for desert warthog (scientific name Phacochoerus aethiopicus, Kiswahili name ‘ngiri’).
