Refresher Course for Our Rangers

Our rangers spend endless hours out in the field providing our wildlife department with vital data on all creatures great and small. Counting elephants, reporting on rhinos, tracking lions; all this data forms the basis of our wildlife research and helps influence conservancy management decisions. And of course, the more boots on the ground, the more we can deter poachers and provide a quick response should an incident occur. While they may be continually sharpening their monitoring and anti-poaching skills, some of the drills they learnt in their initial training are less well oiled.

To ensure they stay up to date with the latest cutting edge techniques in conservation and security, our Wildlife Management Department carries out a patrol teams refresher course every year in October and November. This year, over 200 rangers from Ol Pejeta, Mount Kenya Wildlife Estate and Mutara Conservancy attended the course, which was as much about re-training as it was about catching up and exchanging stories from the field.

The rangers included rhino-patrol teams, general security personnel, radio operators and gate-keepers, who were trained in groups of 35-40 each week over a five week duration. In addition to discipline drills, the training also covers basic conservation principles, non-intrusive wildlife monitoring techniques, health and safety and wildlife photography skills.

These training sessions have been shown to improve the morale of our security teams, and the quality of the wildlife data they gather. By keeping our guys on the ground motivated and equipped with the skills they need to protect our wildlife, we can continue to set an example for conservation in Kenya.

Do you fancy being a ranger for a day? No discipline drills, we promise! Ol Pejeta offers a unique opportunity for you to be a ranger – track collared lions with a specialised antenna, see what animal’s footprints you can discover in the dust, learn how to identify our rhino, and quiz our resident rangers! Book your wild experience now!