Kenya: Nairobi National Park (7th of 8 Posts)
February 12th 2024
There are many reasons to admire Kenya - one being biodiversity conservation. A showcase of this is the capital city's own National Park.
Nairobi National Park is a real protected area, not a city park. It is a slice of megafaunal "shock" with wild-like plains and woods and valleys, streams and artificial ponds right next to the city. You see the city in the near-distance, but are really quite apart from it. A unique feeling.
We took a full day self-drive of the park, going all the way southeast (Athi Dam), walking with an armed warden at Hippo Pools and visiting many stream and artificial pond sites. It was a long day and it was really hard leaving the place. We wished we could stay overnight. I mean we barely saw the whole area, it is 117 square kms in size! (and this is considered small by park standards here...). Of course, this is a one of the word's best birding hotspots (over 520 spp. have been recorded); we saw around 70, primarily because we were also looking to see lions....
The National Park was created in 1946, it is an important testiment to saving megafauna. But there are real challenges in keeping this place wild. The government-sponsored census conducted in 2021 noted that the southern dispersal areas where animals used to roam have been largely blocked by ‘fences, land subdivision into commercial and residential plots, and expanding human populations.’ We saw this, but there is still no fence along most of the southern boundary of the park, so there is still connectivity. In fact, the southern boundary, which follows the undulating Mbagathi River, is quite open despite being so near the city. The animals can move in and out of the park through a semi-natural areas stretching to the Athi-Kaputiei Plains to the southeast. Nairobi National Park thus forms a vital aspect of the greater Athi-Kaputiei ecosystem allowing for the seasonal migration of many of Nairobi National Park’s animals.
So what is it like in terms of viewing mammals?
We saw no Wildebeests, Warthogs, or Waterbucks and no big cats... We did see Zebras, Eland (a small herd), Grant's gazelle and Tomies, lots of Impala, and a few Buffalo. Also a herd of Coke’s hartebeest, known locally as a “kongoni” and a single Spotted Hyaena. The rhinos (some whites, are introduced; but there are some introduced blacks too). We saw at least 4 or 5 rhinos. It was great to see many Giraffes (even a dead on, a young one, killed by a lion). Vervets and baboons were common and in some of the many ponds we saw Hippos and Crocs. We were lucky to see a single monitor lizard at Hippo Pools and an agama-like lizard on the rocky plains. So it was almost full of wildlife to our unaccostumed eyes.
Despite the megafauna still present, big game populations have drastically declined. The city and its built-up surroundings are expanding. National infrastructural development including the Standard Gauge Railway are listed among the factors that have diminished range-land and wildlife. Warthog, waterbuck, hartebeest, and gazelle populations have declined by 70%, from what they were just forty years ago (KWS 2020).
The park is still a conservation hotspot! it is not a tourist honey-pot.
I guess there is still hope and initiatives to expand protection. Cooperation with local communiteis beyond the park must continue. And this part of a greater good; part of Kenyan's identity: landscapes rich in wildlife.
(All snap-shots on this post my own; please give credit if you use them; maps gleaned from the internet- you can't find a proper map of the park these days...).
So why did we not see any lions?
Why does everybody ask this question? (!!)
I think you need luck. Two of us heard a lion and we found a day-old kill (see above, ...young giraffe, the lion was under that bush!). A total-area census of lions within Nairobi National Park found 35 individuals, including cubs, in 2011. An incongruous detail in wildlife populations is that these cats have actually been increasing within the park as there may be immigration into this sanctuary from the surrounding landscapes. The population estimate of lions in NNP in 2019 was 45 with 4 to 7 cubs (National Park Management Plan). Large carnivores following their prey outside the Park to the neighouring pastoral areas on the Athi-Kaputiei Plains in the wet season are often killed by landowners to avenge depredation of livestock, human injuries or deaths. Between 1998 and 2004, at least 87 lions were killed in the Athi-Kaputiei Ecosystem (Ogutu et al. 2022).
MAPS OF NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK
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| Recent photo from space showing the specific outlines of the park (NNP) and the growing sprawl of the big city... |
UPDATE May 2026
An AI image generated for a land-use protest.
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| At the eastern-northeastern part of the park an area with productive glades is planned to be converted in to a multi-use urban park area (within the N.P.). Bottom images show conditions today (bottom-left) and the planed development (bottom-right). The controversial project ($320 million development mega-project). . The plan involves relocating and expanding the 64-year-old Nairobi Animal Orphanage, constructing a multi-billion-shilling visitor center, and adding large parking lots (1,300-vehicle car park lots) to support the adjacent Bomas International Convention Complex. Even though this area may seem small in terms of the size of the N.P. (about 37 ha) within the National Park, there are a lot of people apposed to it. And for good reason: The N.P. and protected areas next to the megacity are already too small to effectively protect the ecosystem workings of broad-scale mammal-rich landscapes. |
References:
CWS. Nairobi National Park Management Plan, 2020-2030.
Mwangi, F., Zhang, Q., & Wang, H. (2022). Development challenges and management strategies on the Kenyan National Park System: A case of Nairobi National Park. International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks, 10(1), 16-26.
Ogutu, J.H., Norman Owen-Smith, Hans-Peter Piepho, Mohammed Y. Said, Shem C. Kifugo, Robin S. Reid, Helen Gichohi, Paula Kahumbu, and Samule Andanje (2013).Changing Wildlife Populations in Nairobi National Park and Adjoining Athi-Kaputiei Plains: Collapse of the Migratory Wildebeest The Open Conservation Biology Journal, 2013, 7, 11-26
