Man Drives Hours Every Day In Drought To Bring Water To Wild Animals

In a land as parched as Kenya's Tsavo West National Park, no visitor arrives with more fanfare than the water man.

That would be Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua. And when he rumbles down the dusty road bearing some 3,000 gallons of fresh water, the elephants, buffalo, antelope and zebras come running.

They've come to know the water man by the rumble of his engine. And his lifesaving cargo.

"There is completely no water, so the animals are depending on humans," Mwalua tells The Dodo. "If we don't help them, they will die."

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

Mwalua fills the bone-dry watering holes in the region, driving for hours on end every day to haul water to where it's most desperately needed.

The holes themselves, lined with concrete, often need cleaning — Mwalua blames it on buffalo droppings — and sometimes, he will just hose down an area of cracked earth for the grateful animals.

"The buffalo roll in the mud so they suffocate the fleas and ticks," he says.

 

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

Many animals don't even wait that long, fearlessly crowding the truck as Mwalua cranks the tap.

"Last night, I found 500 buffalo waiting at the water hole," he says. "When I arrived they could smell the water. The buffalo were so keen and coming close to us.

"They started drinking water while I was standing there. They get so excited."

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

Mwalua, who is a pea farmer in his local village, came up with the idea after seeing firsthand the grim toll climate change has taken in his native land. In the last year especially, he says, the area has seen precious little precipitation, leaving animals to die of thirst in these cracked lands.

"We aren't really receiving rain the way we used to," he says. "From last year, from June, there was no rain completely. So I started giving animals water because I thought, 'If I don't do that, they will die.'"

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

Between road trips, Mwalua runs a conservation project called Tsavo Volunteers. The 41-year-old also visits local schools to talk to children about the wildlife that is their legacy.

"I was born around here and grew up with wildlife and got a lot of passion about wildlife," he says. "I decided to bring awareness to this so when they grow up they can protect their wildlife."

 

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

Last year, Mwalua started renting a truck and driving water to several locations in Tsavo West. His mission would extend to several trucks, keeping him on the road for hours every day as he drives dozens of hard miles between stops.

"The truck is heavy and doesn't go very fast," he says. "We have to be very patient and go deliver water."

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

But his lifeline has also extended from that hose in Tsavo West all the way to the United States — where three women, who have never met him or each other, help him keep the taps flowing.

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

"I visited Kenya December of 2015, though I didn't know Patrick at the time or meet him," Angie Brown, who lives in Connecticut, tells The Dodo. But the country, and especially the plight of its animals, haunted her.

When she heard about the most recent drought, Brown connected on Facebook with Cher Callaway and Tami Calliope. The trio — Callaway lives in Utah and Calliope in Vermont — decided to help.

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

Callaway, who has worked with Mwalua on several projects — including fundraisers for beehives and night patrols to gently scare elephants away from villages — says Kenya's water delivery man is keeping animals alive during the current drought.

"His commitment to the wildlife and his heritage is unmeasurable," she tells The Dodo. "Even risking his own life in the middle of the night to deliver water to a dry water hole."

 

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

Callaway set up a GoFundMe page that has so far collected more than $18,000 from people around the world — all of it going toward Mwalua's water delivery service.

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

"We have all spent a lot of time getting the word out about the animals Patrick is helping and the GoFundMe has been a real success," Brown says. "He needs so much more money though."
In fact, they're hoping to soon buy him his own truck.

Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

But one way or another, Mwalua will keep rumbling down those dusty roads. Many miles to go. And many more thirsty mouths.

Want to help? Consider making a contribution here.

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Why the zebra has stripes

Where did the zebra get his stripes? Or rather, why?

This has been studied over the years, with various theories proposed: to confuse predators, provide camouflage, regulate body temperature, aid in social interaction and to repel insects, according to National Geographic. The two that have had the best results in studies over the years are repelling insects and confusing predators.

A scientific team headed by Tim Caro, a wildlife biologist at the University of California-Davis, mapped the range of zebras as well as horses and asses, noting striping on their bodies. This was compared to the five hypotheses about the purpose of zebra stripes using variables such as predator ranges, wooded areas, temperatures and distribution of biting flies. The best overlap was with biting flies.

Source: Here

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Zebra stripes, has a great purpose in the wild

Professor Johannes Zanker, a Neuroscience professor of Royal Holloway University, explains the significance of zebra stripes.

The stripes are intended to create an optical illusion or motion illusion against predators and pesky insects that may carry diseases.

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Zebras

Zebras, as cousins to the horse, remain to be one of the most popular animals with children, defined by the Zebra’s distinct parallel streaks of white and black.

With their popularity, the question of domesticating zebras as how horses have been successfully domesticated have come up over the years, with answers yielding towards saying “No. They’re not easy to domesticate.”

 

In the 2005 feature Racing Stripes, the idea of a “domesticated” zebra was pivotal to the movie’s overall plot, with its story delving into the life of an abandoned zebra which grew up with race horses. Though the movie did tell of how a zebra managed to be “trained” into becoming a race horse, history notes that a number of actual attempts in domesticating zebras have failed.

As animals, zebras are known for their unpredictability, liable to even attack people at one point in time.

This unpredictable composure of the zebra has made it unfit as a prime candidate for domestication, with many coming to terms with that fact the hard way. However, zebra hybrids are known to exist, though nothing truly spectacular about them have been known to come up, save perhaps the stripes hybrid zebras have on their bodies.

A Zorse, combination zebra and horse, and Zonkey, combination zebra and donkey, have been known to be around for some time, with the history of zebra hybrids dating back to a century into the past.

As unique and cute zebras are, many children have found themselves discouraged by the notion that they are not like horses and donkeys, with instances of being able to ride on the backs of zebras being rare occasions which don’t always happen.

Zebras Video

 

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THE OKAPI

It has the buttocks and legs of a zebra and the head of a giraffe. Could it be the offspring of both? Unfortunately, not.  The Okapi, as what it is formally known, is a close relative of the giraffe and lives in the Ituiri Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It was once described by 1887 English discoverer Henry Morton Stanley as a type of donkey with striped backsides that dwell in the woodlands. Its etymological name is Okapia Johnstoni, as derived from its etymological christener Sir Harry Johnston, who was a British governor of Uganda.

Harry Johnston was intrigued by the animal after reading Morton’s book about his trip to Central Africa.  He then gained knowledge of the species after saving native inhabitants of the area called “pygmies” from a showman who kidnapped them for display. Although he never had actually seen the okapi, he collected some bones and officially named its species in 1901.

Their name “Okapi” originally means forest giraffe in Sudan language. It is also known as the “African Unicorn”.

The Okapi’s diet varies from fruits, berries, to plants poisonous to human beings.  Okapis have long bluish-grey tongues that sometimes reach their ears to help groom themselves. They are diurnal, which means they feed in both nighttime and daytime.  What’s more interesting about them is that they can live up to fifteen years in captivity. They are solitary creatures whose habitat is slowly being endangered due to the vast property developments by humans.

Okapis generally have giraffe characteristics like large ears, small horns and short manes. Their necks are relatively shorter than their cousins, just as they are smaller. They stand at about 5 feet, and weigh between four hundred fifty to five hundred fifty pounds (or up to two hundred fifty kilograms).

It would be interesting to see one personally, don’t you agree?

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