The Grévy’s Zebra Project Sarah Stroud, GZ intern summer 2010 Background on the species • For the majority of my stay in Kenya, I was located in Wamba at an Earthwatch research center. Grévy’s are numerous in this area. • There are three species of Zebra, of which Grevy’s are the largest (and arguably cutest) • They’re endangered—there are fewer than 2500 left at last count. The problem • Grévy’s primarily compete with livestock for water and grazing land. Based only on my rough estimate, there are probably ten sheep/goats and cows per household in the area. • Grévy’s are also easier prey for lions than Plains Zebra because they adopt a fight instead of flight strategy (which is what the Plains Zebra choose). Steps toward a solution • While I was there, the African Wildlife Foundation primarily used line transects (walking a line between two GPS points and taking a census of all animals seen) and a Grévy’s-only census taken from a moving vehicle to estimate the number of the species left in any of several reserves in central Kenya. What next? • While both of those techniques are useful for determining the population of an endangered species, what’s important now is collaboration with agencies working to bring water into the area. • Educating families in the area about more efficient and sustainable grazing practices is also essential.