Pride Returns to a Storied African Park

A lion calls to others in booming, short moans during a night’s downpour. Just after dawn, a group of rhinos forages for the day’s first meal.

Meru National Park, the place where “Born Free” conservationists George and Joy Adamson began their work with orphaned lions, has only recently begun seeing such scenes again. Decades of poaching had obliterated its rhino population, devastated elephant herds and scared away most other animals.

Tourist numbers dropped to 6,000 last year from a peak of 40,000 a year in the 1970s.

Poachers and bandits operated with impunity throughout Kenya in the 1980s, taking rhino horns and elephant tusks for folk medicine and high-priced ornaments and jewelry. Poorly paid rangers and park administrators often cooperated with the poachers.

In 1989, the government abolished the Wildlife Conservation and Management Department and created the autonomous Kenya Wildlife Service, which has the ability to make quicker and more independent decisions. Poaching has subsided, helped by a 1989 global ban on the ivory trade and subsequent drop in prices.

The Kenya Wildlife Service still struggles, but there are signs of progress in places like Meru.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare has spent $1.25 million over the last five years to restore the park, buying binoculars, GPS locators and other equipment for the rangers. The Yarmouth Port, Mass.-based group also financed the restocking of several types of animals, as well as school bus tours to Meru.

“Meru did face its upheavals. It had a checkered history ... but it doesn’t mean it has lost it entirely. Basically, the habitat was more or less intact. What was lacking was the biodiversity, the animals,” said James Isiche, East Africa regional director for IFAW.

Today, zebras, antelopes and gazelles trot away at the sound of an approaching vehicle, nervously twitching their ears, unlike game in other Kenyan national parks that has become accustomed to motor traffic.

During the 1980s, poachers killed all of the park’s black rhinos, senior warden Mark Jenkins said.

Five years ago, the Kenya Wildlife Service began introducing white rhinos into Meru with funding from IFAW, he said.

“This was a statement to the country that the Kenya Wildlife Service organization believes Meru is safe,” Jenkins said.

Today about 40 white rhinos live in a sanctuary in the park.

Visitors also can see the grave of Elsa, the lioness made famous by the 1966 film “Born Free.” The Adamsons began their experiment preparing orphaned lion cubs for life in the wild on Mugwongo Hill in the park.

George Adamson -- who followed the trajectory of many of his generation from hunter to conservationist -- was Meru’s warden from July 1938 to September 1961. He is buried in neighboring Kora National Park, where he continued his conservation work until killed by bandits in 1989.

The Kenya Wildlife Service is now so confident that Meru is on the path to recovery that it plans to build four more lodges, aiming to increase capacity from 24 beds to 240, Jenkins said.

The manager of the upscale 24-bed Elsa’s Kopje, built on Mugwongo Hill, is happy at the prospect.

“It would be nice to have some company,” said Ava Paton. “And also opening up other lodges will be more revenue for the park and therefore more conservation.”