Kenya launches its first-ever national census for wildlife

• News & Highlights

In a normal year, more than 2 million tourists visit Kenya, often for its diverse wildlife.

One of the country’s most popular destinations is Amboseli National Park, which spans more than 150 square miles in the southern part of the country.

The park is made up of dry plains and relatively new wetlands, filled with water from nearby Mount Kilimanjaro in neighboring Tanzania.

While the pandemic has hit Kenya’s tourism industry hard, people around the world are still traveling there to spot elephants, zebras, hippos and lions roaming freely in the unfenced park.

But scientists like Patrick Omondi, acting director of Kenya’s new Wildlife Research and Training Institute, are there to work. They are coordinating an ambitious, government-sponsored effort to count all of Kenya’s major land and marine wildlife for the first time.