Amboseli National Park

Amboseli National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Location of Amboseli National Park Location of Amboseli National Park within Kenya
Location	Loitoktok District, Kajiado County, Kenya
Nearest city	Nairobi
Coordinates	02°38′29″S 37°14′53″E
Area	392 km2 (151 sq mi)
Established	1906 (1906); as a reserve 1974 (1974); as a national park
Visitors	120,000 estimated (in 2006)
Governing body	Kenya Wildlife Service, Olkejuado County Council and the Maasai community

Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is a national park in Loitoktok District in Kajiado County, Kenya. It is 39,206 ha (392.06 km²) in size at the core of an 8,000 km² (3,100 sq mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from other parts of the country have settled there attracted by the successful tourist-driven economy and intensive agriculture along the system of swamps that makes this low-rainfall area, average 350 mm (14 in), one of the best wildlife-viewing experiences in the world with 400 species of birds including water birds like pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hamerkop and 47 raptor species.

The park protects two of the five main swamps and includes a dried-up Pleistocene lake and semiarid vegetation.

History

Mount Kilimanjaro is in the background.

In 1883, Jeremy Thompson was the first European to penetrate the feared Maasai region known as Empusel (meaning 'salty, dusty place' in Maa). He, too, was astonished by the fantastic array of wildlife and the contrast between the arid areas of the dry lake bed and the oasis of the swamps, a contrast that persists today.

Amboseli was set aside as the Southern Reserve for the Maasai in 1906 but returned to local control as a game reserve in 1948. Gazetted a national park in 1974 to protect the core of this unique ecosystem, it was declared a UNESCO site in 1991. The park earned $3.5 m (€2.9 m) in 2005. On 29 September 2005, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared that control of the park should pass from the Kenya Wildlife Service to the Olkejuado County Council and the Maasai tribe. Some observers saw this as a political favour in advance of a vote on a new Kenyan constitution; legal challenges are currently in court. The degazetting would divert park admission fees directly to the county council with shared benefits to the Maasai immediately surrounding the park.

Wildlife

Elephants in Amboseli National Park wirh Mount Kilimanjaro in the background

"Tim" the Elephant at Amboseli National Park

Amboseli National Park was home to Echo, the most researched elephant in the world, and the subject of many books and documentaries, followed for almost four decades by American conservationist Cynthia Moss. Echo died in 2009 when she was about 60 years old.

Amboseli National Park is home to African bush elephant, Cape buffalo, impala, lion, cheetah, spotted hyena, Masai giraffe, Grant's zebra, and blue wildebeest. A host of large and small birds occur too.

See also

• Amboseli Elephant Research Project
• Amboseli Baboon Research Project