Wild Places East Africa: Ruma National Park, South Nyanza, Western Kenya

Ruma National Park, I first visited from 2013 to 2014, when Managing Director of the Green Forest Social Investment (GFSI) in the Gwassi Hills of Homa Bay County. It is a gem of a national park - comprising just 120 km²of the valley floor, of what was initially, in 1966, in order to protect the last surviving population of Roan antelope in Kenya, gazetted as the Lambwe Valley Game Reserve.

From my early days as an entomologist (in 1988 I was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of London for my research into the ecology and control of tsetse flies in southern Somalia), Lambwe valley was a name notorious to me, as a persistent focus of human sleeping sickness and where numerous attempts had been made to eradicate the tsetse fly vectors of the disease. In my doctoral thesis I had postulated that specific habitat and atmospheric conditions in the Lambwe Valley and adaptive behaviour of the tsetse fly species, Glossina pallidipes, were the reason for the failure of repeated attempts to eradicate tsetse fly, using ultra-low-volume sequential applications of the organochlorine insecticide, endosulfan, both in the Lambwe Valley and in Somalia. Little attention, by the British Overseas Development Administration, was paid to my study, which was intended to inform, from ecological studies, tsetse fly survey and control operations in Somalia, and the blanket spraying of endosulfan from low-flying aircraft at night continued in tsetse infested areas, despite demonstrably effective and ecologically benign alternatives, for years to come, in Somalia - and elsewhere (most notably in the magnificent World Heritage listed Okavango delta of Botswana). Tsetse fly continue to thrive in both the Lambwe and Shabeelle valleys today, though over much smaller areas, due to the massive expansion of human populations and associated habitat destruction that has taken place over the past three decades.

Ruma National Park, a long narrow valley of grassland savannah and Acacia nilotica thicket that extends towards Lake Victoria, is located in Suba district of South Nyanza, close to Lake Victoria and at an altitude of 1,200 to 1,600 metres a.s.l. Much of the park is located on black cotton soil, where the galled whistling thorn, Acacia drepanolobium dominates. The main rains fall between April and June, when 4-WD is essential. Because it is remote (425 km West of Nairobi, 140 km from Kisumu and 65 km from Kisii) and in Western Kenya, undeservedly infrequently visited by tourists, it is likely, if you visit, that you will not see another tourist in Ruma. Away from the park, there are extensive possibilities to hike and camp in the Gwassi Hills, with spectacular views over Lake Victoria. Sadly, the only remaining indigenous forest in Suba district, are significant individual plantations of up to 30 ha, of Acacia polyacantha and A. xanthophloea, that were planted by GFSI and little wildlife remains to be seen outside of the park.

Within Ruma National Park can be seen:

More than 400 recorded species of birds (including the rare African intra-migrant blue swallow)
An exceptional diversity of snakes: African spitting cobra, forest cobra, python, green and black mamba, puff adder and many others
Buffalo, oribi, impala, topi, bohor reedbuck, Lelwel hartebeest, Jackson's hartebeest, Rothschild's giraffe, bushbuck, water buck and duiker
Leopard, hyaena, cheetah, serval cat, honey badger
Olive baboon, vervet monkey
Warthog and bush pig
Black rhinoceros
The last remaining population (around 40 head) of Roan antelope in Kenya

One day in Ruma National Park (all photos taken with inexpensive Fujica FinePix SL1000):

Sunrise on the road through Maguga (Gwassi Hills) towards Ruma National Park

Rothschild's giraffe (Giraffe camelopardalis rothschildi) in the grassland savannah of the Ruma National Park (trees in foreground Acacia drepanolobium and Balanites egyptiaca)