 | Program: Wildlife Management Studies
Financial Aid availableProgram Description
The Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem is a completely open, unfenced national park where wildlife and humans interact and compete for space and resources. Nairobi National Park is a partially fenced ecosystem and Nakuru-Hellsgate is a completely fenced park. Students will conduct research in each of these three parks, at their respective stages of development, to help provide insight into the relative success of each system. Student research will also help determine what lessons can be learned from the management of Nairobi National Park and Nakuru-Hellsgate to help the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem in maintaining its integrity while simultaneously promoting sustainable cohabitation between human communities, wildlife, and other natural resources. The diverse habitat surrounding our Kilimanjaro Bush Camp (KBC) is used by wildlife as a migration corridor between Tsavo, Chyulu Hills, and Amboseli National Parks. The Maasai, and now other settlers, depend upon this same area as a communal grazing zone for livestock as well as for growing food. As a result, they often face economic hardship due to crop damage from migrating wildlife, loss of livestock, and resource depletion. The KBC research is framed by the needs of dispersing and migrating wildlife between the wildlife dispersal areas of Amboseli National Park on the west and Tsavo West–Chyulu Hills National Parks in the east. Research questions center on issues related to the conflicts between wildlife, livestock, and humans in the group ranches that occupy the spaces between the protected areas, and the changing human community and land-use patterns of non-Maasai cultivators and Maasai livestock herders. Students gather data on wildlife conservation among resource-constrained communities — a critical first step in developing integrated land-use strategies that will enable residents to derive optimal benefits from their land and forestall additional fragmentation of key wildlife areas. While based at our National Park Camp, student research focuses on the needs of the wildlife, which are protected while in the Park, but not in the dispersal area, and the needs of the people, who are excluded from the Park but are exercising their rights as landowners to settle and cultivate, or develop industry on their land in the dispersal area. This increased development around Nairobi National Park threatens its biological integrity and has led to the precipitous decline of large mammal populations. Pollution and climate change threaten the already strained water supply and the health of numerous birds and animals. Increased human and livestock populations in areas surrounding the park are leading to intensified conflicts, including disease, predation, and destruction of crops by migrating wildlife. The inevitable encroachment on Nairobi National Park is stimulating intense debate as to whether the best way forward is simply to fence off the Park from the dispersal area, such as was done with Lake Nakuru National Park, leaving the wildlife trapped inside, but at least giving better protection to the Park and its wildlife. SFS students assist the Kenya Wildlife Service with studies in the following areas: vegetation mapping; grazing and browsing impact surveys; large mammal population counts and distributions; educational facility upgrades; and human impact on the park. Learn More Program Details Credits | 18 environmental studies credits | | Dates | Spring 2009: Feb 2 – May 6
Summer Session I 2009: June 8 - July 7
Summer Session II 2009: July 13 - Aug 11
Fall 2009: Sept 7 - Dec 10
Spring 2010: Jan 29 - May 6
Summer Session I 2010: June 7 - July 6
Summer Session II 2010: July 12 - Aug 10
Fall 2010: Sept 7 - Dec 9
Spring 2011: Jan 28 - May 5
Summer Session I 2011: June 6 - July 5
Summer Session II 2011: July 11 - Aug 9
Fall 2011: Sept 7 - Dec 10 | | Location/Base | Center for Wildlife Management Studies, Kenya: Kilimanjaro Bush Camp in Kimana. Tour the field station. | | Program Fees | Fall 2009 / Spring 2010: $16,940 (includes all tuition, room, board, local travel. Fee excludes airfare). | | Prerequisites | One semester of college-level ecology or biology; 18 years of age | | Financial Aid | Need based scholarships and loans available. Visit our financial aid section for more information. Travel grants also available. | Field Research, Lectures, & Exercises | - Amboseli elephant research: students learn elephant ecology and wildlife management techniques through recording elephant sightings, collecting census data, understanding ecological keystone and tourism flagship roles, and examining human/elephant conflicts.
- Lake Nakuru National Park and Hellsgate: world-famous for its flamingos, also an important sanctuary for rare birds, black and white rhino; huge herds of waterbuck, zebra, and buffalo; endangered Rothschild giraffe; prides of lion; and leopard. Examine ramifications of an enclosed ecosystem on wildlife biodiversity.
- Manyatta: rare opportunity to glimpse Maasai culture, including rural settlements not usually visited by tourists. Maasai women musical ceremonies, demonstrations in fire-making, dances by Maasai morans (warriors), and lessons in spear throwing.
- Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks: multi-day excursions illustrating the management implications of high concentrations of animals in a confined area. The impact of the elephants, whose trumpeting punctuates the night, are clearly visible by daylight.
- Sample of field research skills development: habitat assessment and mapping; species identification; data recording/analysis; cost/benefit analysis; valuation methods; census of populations; mark and recapture techniques; research mapping; GIS; transect and patch sampling; animal behavior observations; radio tracking; geology and soil identification.
| Sample Directed Research | - Large mammal dispersal corridors and dispersal areas: human activities and structures causing contraction of wildlife dispersal area, and implications for neighboring protected areas such as Amboseli National Park.
- Impact of humans and large mammals such as elephants on plant communities in group ranches and implications of these on wildlife conservation and human livelihoods.
- Subdivision of the Maasai group ranches and their implication on land-use and wildlife conservation.
- Human population growth and structure, their distribution and use of resources, and implications of these on wildlife conservation in communal Maasai rangelands.
| Community Focus
| Above all else, we seek to give back to our host communities around the world. Understanding community views on wildlife, the challenges faced, and management policies employed by park managers is central among our research goals. Students have many opportunities for social interaction as well, including: - Presentations of research findings to community stakeholders.
- Visits to local markets and a neighboring boma (Maasai homestead) for traditional Maasai celebrations, a lecture on culture and artifacts, jewelry making with Maasai mamas, and to conduct interviews for research work.
- Community service work in local schools, hospitals, orphanages, and with a local women's group.
- Visits to an elephant orphanage and a giraffe center.
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Language of Instruction
English Application Deadlines
Rolling admissions. Early submissions encouraged for acceptance into program of your choice. Housing
Our Kilimanjaro Bush Camp is located southeast of Nairobi on 25 acres of fenced land at the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro, bordering a permanent river fed by natural springs. Adjacent to the river is a lush zone of yellow Acacia trees with clear undergrowth giving a perfect view of the magnificent vegetation mosaic. Across the river is Kimana High School, where SFS students enjoy a rare opportunity for cultural exchange with Kenyan youth and to visit nearby Maasai bomas (villages). Students sleep in thatched-roof bandas, with a main building, or chumba, which houses a dining room, kitchen, classroom, and library. Additional facilities include a duka (shop), bathrooms, and open-air showers. Tour the field station. Courses
Semester students are registered in five academic courses accredited through Boston University: BI/EE (NS) 371 Techniques of Wildlife Management (4 credits)
BI/EE (NS) 372 Wildlife Ecology (4 credits)
EE (SS) 302 Environmental Policy and Socioeconomic Values (4 credits)
EE 491 or 492 Directed Research (4 credits)
LE 205E Introduction to Swahili Language and East African Tribal Communities (2 credits) See our course description page for more details
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