It's a desperate operation to save hundreds of hippos in the Tana River region, one hundred and fifty kilometers north of Malindi.
We are in the Lamu district, where the most important river forms a delta of Kenya which also includes two key reservoirs for the ecosystem of the area and for water resources useful to agriculture and livestock.
But also the wildlife present on the Tana River Delta and Lake Kenyatta, near Mpeketoni, he needed the water to survive.
The drought in Kenya and especially the coast in recent months is doing untold damage and that the worst situations you will see in the years to come. All of course this is a consequence of climate change due to global pollution.
Lake Kenyatta, named in honor of the Father of the Nation and the current President of the Republic of Kenya, is located near Mpeketoni and is almost totally dried up. Dozens of hippos in recent weeks were trapped in the mud of the lake basin and died for lack of water and the heat. They are literally dissolved along with the mud. Many were found carcasses, perhaps because the meat was stolen from the starving local population.
Now the Kenya Wildlife Service has launched a massive rescue operation of the hundred hippos remained in the territory and another twenty living in another smaller lake, the Chomo. Through a dam on the River Tana, we try to convey water in the reservoirs and at the same time entice hippos to emigrate toward the river.
An operation key to save these animals, as well as in the coming days will be important to monitor the situation in the near Nairobi Ranch, a wilderness area between the delta of the Tana and semi-desert area of ​​Garissa.