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Report on Cooper visit to Kenya, March-April 2023
Introduction We flew back from Kenya, East Africa, on Tuesday 18th April after a seventeen-day visit together, Kenya is, of course, our “nyumba ya pili” (second home), in which our children were born in the 1970s and where we have spent happy years together. We had a very good time and were able to catch…
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VISIT TO KENYA, September-October 2022
By John E Cooper 12th October 2022 I returned on Friday, 8th October from my visit to Kenya. Margaret and I were last in East Africa two-and-a-half years’ ago, just before the SARS- CoV- 2 (“Covid-19”) pandemic and lockdown. For much of my “safari” in Kenya I was accompanied by our friend and colleague Professor Charles…
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THE FISHES’ TALE. Part II : RESURGENCE
By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS If you missed Part I, it’s here. Franz Witte back in Leiden could hardly believe what he was hearing on the crackly phone line from Tanzania: was his research student Ole really claiming there were dozens of Haplochromine (Haps) fish in his net ? Ole Seehausen, (who’s now a Professor…
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THE FISHES’ TALE
By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS – FFON’s Kenya and UK correspondent Part 1: DARWIN’S OWN LAKE Lake Victoria has been a highway for trade, could become a highspot for tourists, and is an evocative presence in the literature of East Africa. But why should a Dutch biologist name his book “Darwin’s Dreampond: Drama in Lake…
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From John and Margaret Cooper in Kenya
When we visited El Karama Ranch in Laikipia we expected to be shown a lot of large farm livestock and to see impressive wildlife, such as elephants. We experienced both but we were also consulted about a young white-browed sparrow-weaver (Plocepasser mahali) that had been found by Mrs Lavinia Grant (a long-term Kenya resident, renowned…
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All aboard the Madaraka Express – Kenya with the Coopers
John and Margaret Cooper are currently in Kenya. Here is an account of their experience of catching Kenya’s “Chinese Train” the modern replacement of the British narrow-guage railway (of man-eating lions fame) built at the turn of the 19th century, in its day a memorable, well-recorded experience in itself. The only certainty in life is…
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Kenya presentation: “Gorillas in the midst of war” – Saturday, 18 August 2018
FFON contributors John and Margaret Cooper share their two years’ experience working with mountain gorillas in Central Africa, discuss the history of the discovery, and the role played by Dr Louis Leakey and others, in learning more about the biology of these usually gentle and elusive great apes. Bookings: info@kenyamuseumsociety.org
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Conservation challenges in Kenya
On a recent busy visit to Kenya, John and Margaret Cooper visited a number of locations where there is competition for land and where wildlife – and local people – may suffer as an outcome. One of these was particularly noteworthy. This was a short, 48-hour, trip to Maasailand, a few kilometres outside Kajiado, where…
