The Samburu
National Reserve is a game reserve on the banks of the Ewaso Ng'iro river in Kenya.
On the other side of the river is the Buffalo
Springs National Reserve. The park is
165 km² in size and is situated 350 kilometres from Nairobi. It ranges in altitude from 800 to 1230m above sea
level. Geographically, it is located in Samburu County.
In the middle of the reserve, the Ewaso Ng'iro flows through doum palm groves and thick riverine forests. It provides
water, without which the game in this arid region could not survive.
The Samburu National Reserve was one of the two areas in
which conservationists George Adamson and Joy Adamson raised Elsa the Lioness made famous in the best selling book and award
winning movie Born
Free.
The Samburu National Reserve is also the home of Kamunyak, a lioness famous for adopting oryx calves.
Habitat
Samburu National Reserve can be entered via the Ngare
Mare and Buffalo Springs gates. Once inside the reserve, there are two
mountains visible: Koitogor and Ololokwe. Samburu National Reserve is very
peaceful and attracts animals because of the Ewaso Ng'iro river (meaning "brown water" and pronounced
U-aa-so-Nyee-ro) that runs through it and the mixture of acacia, riverine forest,
thorn trees and grassland vegetation. The Ewaso Ng'iro flows from the Kenyan
highlands and empties into the famous Lorian Swamp. The natural serenity that is evident here is due to its
distance from industry and the inaccessibility of the reserve for many years.
Wildlife
There is a wide variety of animal and bird life seen at
Samburu National Reserve. Several large game species common to Kenya's northern
plains can be found in abundance here, including the following dry-country
fauna: gerenuk, Grevy's zebra, oryx and reticulated giraffe. All three big cats known as the Masai lion, Tanzanian cheetah and leopard can also be found here, as well as the elephant, Cape buffalo and Hippopotamus.
Other mammals frequently seen in the park include olive baboon, warthogs, Grant's gazelle, Kirk's dik-dik, impala,
and waterbuck. The rhinoceros population is no longer present in the park due to
heavy poaching.
There are over 350 species of bird. These include grey-headed
kingfisher, sunbirds, bee-eaters, Marabou stork, tawny eagle, Verreaux's eagle, bateleur, vulturine guineafowl, yellow-necked
spurfowl, lilac-breasted
roller, secretary bird, superb starling, northern
red-billed hornbill, yellow-billed
hornbill, and various vultures including the palm-nut vulture.
The Ewaso Ng'iro river contains large numbers of crocodile basks.
